Re: Bus problems on the first day of school Archived Message
Posted by machine_easy2 on August 23, 2016, 6:53 pm, in reply to "Re: Bus problems on the first day of school"
Game set and match? Did anybody try and find out how much that companies product costs. I'm betting it's not to cheep. An RFID Reader/Wireless Internet/GPS locator on every bus. Thats not going to be cheep. $500 a bus easy. Probably more like $1500+. RFID cards for every student. I'd guess the company will make you buy from them, at about 5 bucks a card, a year, times how many students? And someone, perhaps at the bus co, perhaps at the school district, will have to administer the system, thats at least a part time job likely more. I like the RFID better it makes for a better overall system, no need to stop and scan, can scan multiple students at the same time. It is more Orwellian though. It also raises security questions. RFID chips can be used to store data, perhaps the address and emergency contact info for a student on the good side, but without lesser used higher security protocols, that data can be read by anyone with a scanner. Tags can be spoofed by anyone, exactly. Little Johny never got on the bus, he put a fake tag he made in someone else's bag. There was also my claim that it's not as easy, and WUS and speak seem to think. The system WUS found wasn't made in a weekend hackathon. It actually looks quite complicated, and was originally developed for hospitals, not schools. But if you already put together the peaces why not find government representatives willing to pay good amounts of other peoples money for a silly product. Lets just say that system is great. It's not at all Orwellian to have kids carry the same tag they put in dogs for tracking reasons. Someone else pays for it so the tax payer is off the hook. That company I had never heard is really big on hardened security when most school and medical software isn't. This isn't the kind of software that breads complacency, and the school had the system before the start of the year. Nothing I would care about is wrong with it. Now, miraculously all of the 1st graders remembered to bring their ID on the first day of school. When that group got dropped off at the wrong school. The unit on the bus updated the data base back at HQ (the software makers HQ, or the Bus co's or the schools?). The person watching the bus routes noticed they just dropped kids off at a school she didn't know existed so she starts asking around.... Mistake, alert the parents... A bus load of parents get a text message saying there kid got dropped here by mistake and a bus is on it's way to pick them up. Now what happens? A busload of parents are getting in their cars, driving, probably recklessly, to get to their kid as fast as possible, through areas other kids are still using to get to school. They beat the bus, and proceed to drop the kid off at the proper location. While those hypothetical kids were getting a ride from mom/dad they were in the most dangerous place they had been all day. The back seat of a car, and one likely being driven by an upset parent. The lives of other kids and drivers were put in harms way, and now the police are wondering why more than 1/2 the kids they thought were just dropped here weren't still there for the connecting bus. It's an even bigger debacle. One that really would have put far more people in harms way. But hey parents feelings are alway right, thats why they tell parents upon boarding an airplane to put THEIR OWN mask on first. It's redundant because thats already parental instinct, and airlines love redundant. The best solution to any of this I've seen yet is still a kids GPS watch. They are cheep enough any parent that wants one can get one for their kids. They don't require kids information being loaded into IT systems their parents may be uncomfortable with. They don't subject "free range kids" to surveillance that might bother their parents instincts on how a kids ought be raised. It also works outside of school hours, when kids are far more likely to have something bad happen to them anyway. If you think your kid should have one, go get one. Simple, easy, cheep.
|
|