This article has been updated to reflect 2026 data and recent developments.
Student truancy is a problem for many school districts across the country, impacting student performance and even the amount of funding schools receive. Some schools in Texas thought they had found a way to address the problem directly in 2012, by requiring students to wear special badges that allowed school administrators to monitor their whereabouts. While school officials called the new tracking cards a boon to student safety and attendance, some parents and students voiced concern over whether schools were going too far in violating student privacy.
Monitoring Programs Introduced in San Antonio, Austin
The Huffington Post reported in 2012 that the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio had distributed the special ID cards to all of its students as part of a pilot program dubbed the “Student Locator Project.” The identification cards contained a microchip that allowed teachers and staff to track students while they were on school property. At the time, the project was underway at two Northside schools: Jay High School and Jones Middle School. The program impacted around 4,200 students between the two schools.
The new tags used radio frequency identification technology (RFID) for the tracking mechanism. In a notice sent out to parents, district officials stated the RFID tags would be used to make schools safer, identify the location of students, and increase school revenue. The cards were to be used as general student identification cards as well. ID cards had to be presented for various functions on school campuses, such as voting in school elections.
The district discontinued the RFID pilot program in 2013, meaning the Student Locator Project is no longer an active initiative. The debate over student tracking and privacy, however, remains relevant in 2026.
This video discusses whether tracking students is ok.
Opposition to Student Tracking
Slate reported that while most of the San Antonio parents and students had accepted the RFID cards without much ado, a few had voiced protests over the new practice. One parent of a student at Jay High School compared the new ID card to biblical warnings about the “mark of the beast” during end times, which appear in the Book of Revelation. This parent launched a full-scale protest of the new tracking devices, which attracted other parents and students at the school. His daughter told WOAI that she refused to wear the card, carrying her old student ID with her instead.
Other concerns that were raised regarding the new devices included:
Dehumanizing students, as monitoring all activity within the school environment, may be demeaning.
Hesitation by students to seek help from counselors and other school staff, since their whereabouts would no longer be kept private from other faculty and administrators.
Students could become accustomed to electronic tracking, which could carry through into their adult lives and they begin to see monitoring and tracking as a normal part of society.
The U.S. Department of Education continues to provide guidance on student privacy protections under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), an important consideration for schools using electronic student information systems in 2026.
This TEDx Talk opines that student tracking should end.
Student Safety over Privacy
While many saw the merit to these concerns, others believed that tracking identification was an effective way for schools to keep an eye on students while they were in the care of school staff. Pascual Gonzalez, communications director for the school district, pointed out that students in school had never expected the level of privacy they are entitled to receive as adults in the population at large.
“By virtue of the fact that you are a student at a school, there is no privacy,” Gonzalez explained to Slate. “It is our responsibility to know where every single one of those 3,000 students is while they are in our care during the school day.”
Gonzalez also told WOAI that the two schools chosen for the pilot program had an unusually high rate of tardiness and truancy. The new tags would help monitor attendance more accurately, by counting students as they entered the building. School administrators also asserted that tracking ability would keep students safer while they were on school property.
According to Texas Public Radio, Northside Independent School District discontinued the RFID pilot program in July 2013.
Funding Tied to Attendance
For students to perform well in school, they must attend classes regularly. With high tardiness and truancy numbers, it is highly possible the students at the Northside schools were not performing as well as they could be. Those numbers impacted more than student safety and performance; they affected the amount of funding schools received as well. Gonzalez said the schools could gain as much as $2 million in state funding if attendance throughout the district improved. Other sources cited additional funding possibilities closer to $1.7 million. Tracking devices would allow schools to count every student on campus, even if the student was not present for morning roll calls.
These funding estimates were projections made during the original pilot program, not current funding figures for 2026.
Austin School Offers Options Tracking System
Some schools in Austin also got in on the Texas tracking system, although they made participation in the program optional for students and parents. ABC Local reported that the Austin school district had implemented a truancy program that used GPS trackers to monitor the location of students. The program was introduced at nine high schools, also targeting the schools with the highest records for truancy and tardiness. Participation in the program required consent from both the parents and the student.
ABC reported that more than half of the students at one Austin high school missed six or more days of school every year. Those students made up around 85 percent of the absences at that school. Many of the students on that list were from low-income families, making the statistics even more concerning for educators.
“If our students don’t attend, they can’t get the instruction they need from their classes,” Crystal Bernard, an administrator for the district, told ABC. “It’s marrying the technology that our students are already comfortable with, to get them excited about coming to and attending school.”
The Texas Tribune also reported on the use of student tracking technology in Texas schools during this period. As of 2026, these programs remain historical examples of the challenges schools face in balancing attendance, student safety and privacy.
