Posted on 05/06/2002 6:40:03 AM PDT by rw4site
IN the past year, Clear Creek schools began using a compulsory computer system for children's lunch money. Each student is issued a personal identification number. If they wish to buy lunch at school, they first must deposit their money in their PIN account. Little explanation was given by the school district, and the new PIN system was announced without offering parents an option to continue to use cash anonymously alongside the PIN system.
This constitutes a serious invasion of privacy by the schools and a loss of our children's rights to use cash.
First, the system is compulsory. The cafeteria refuses to accept cash without a PIN number. This is despite the fact that it says on our money: "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." If the school does not accept cash for the lunch, it is breaking the law. The law doesn't say we have to have a PIN number. If retail stores began requiring an ID before they accept cash, their businesses would suffer dramatically because customers would object. What business is it of theirs who I am when I buy a cup of coffee or a book with cash? If we see the invasion of privacy in one case, why not the other?
What are the advantages of using cash? Cash is anonymous. Our privacy laws guarantee that it is no business of the government what we eat for lunch, how we buy our groceries or what movies we watch. Since the schools do not provide an alternative to the use of their PIN system, we have lost the privacy of cash. Do we really want to give up this privacy to a compulsory ID system?
Second, the PIN accounts are used to keep a record of the number of times each child bought lunch at school. This is necessary to send the periodic reports to parents about their children's accounts. But if the parents object, there is no recourse. I have told my children that they are not allowed to use their PINs and to tell the cafeteria worker that their mother said so. Just give cash. After a few weeks of this at Armand Bayou Elementary, the cafeteria staff got to know my children and just entered their PIN number themselves. In other words, the school is keeping records of my children's spending habits over my strict objections. This is a clear invasion of privacy.
The schools rapidly learned that fraud is not limited to adults: It was very easy for friends to exchange PIN numbers. The solution was to include a picture of each student on the IDs. Now our children have picture IDs as well as consumer records being kept on them by the cafeteria service. Parents have extensive papers to sign at the beginning of the school year concerning whether we agree to allow the school to use pictures of our children in school publications. Do we have any guarantee that the schools' food services contractor, Aramark, will not sell the PIN records to a consumer marketing group?
Third, the school has set itself up as a banking institution. Parents, as depositors, receive no interest on our money and have no guarantee from the federal government that our money is insured within the legal limit. The school does claim to issue periodic statements of the activity in our PIN accounts (although we have yet to receive one), but it has not offered any explanation as to the financial status of these accounts. Would you invest money in a business that didn't give you a financial statement?
Granted, it's farfetched to imagine the principal of my children's elementary shool taking their lunch money to vacation in Tijuana, or the cafeteria workers selling their ID files to telemarketers, but great invasions of privacy can occur when people don't defend their rights in small matters.
Not only is it an invasion of our privacy and a violation of our right to use cash, but our children, in grades as early as kindergarten and first grade, are placed on the front lines of the battle, having to argue with the cafeteria workers at the lunch register about their PIN numbers.
If the school opts to retain the PIN system, parents should be able to opt out. At the very least the administration could institute a cash only PIN that doesn't identify the buyer, and remove records from their files of families who object. I consider it a very serious issue that a food services contractor has, without my permission, obtained and used pictures of my children and is keeping consumer records of them, and that I am unable to buy them school lunches without using those records. I have no desire to have records of this sort kept on my children.
The school should be required to pay interest on our money or offer other discounts on lunches in lieu of interest. This is similar to buying gasoline. I can pay for gas by credit card, major credit card, debit card or cash. If I use a gasoline company's debit card, I am offered discounts in lieu of interest for the money I have paid the company in advance. And I still have the option of paying cash and need offer no ID.
A school should be held accountable under U.S. banking laws. If it is not willing to be considered a real bank, it shouldn't be in the banking business. Leave it to the banks.
And finally, however likely or unlikely scenarios of theft and misuse are, the issues of right to privacy and the right to use cash anonymously are too important to tamper with even in a minor way.
In the past, my experience has been that the Clear Creek schools have been very responsive to parents and work well with parents concerned about religious and civil freedoms. This is such an issue, and I am hoping for a resolution that we all can live with. Whether we like it or not, we are responsible as voters and citizens to object when our government takes on rights that we have not given them, or we may lose those rights by our inaction. In the words of an eighth-grader quoted on the Freedom Shrine at Space Center Intermediate, "The government has only the powers that the people give it."
Martin is a Houston mother of six children, who range from a first-grader to a freshman in college.
What about their right to carry a water pistol?
The notion of a child's right to use cash trivializes
the issue of liberty.
PACK A LUNCH
I'm pretty quick to get irritated by people asking for private information, but I guess this is one battle I wouldn't choose to fight. When we were this age, we came home for lunch. School districts can't count on sending little ones home for lunch anymore. I really don't fault them for using an electronic system for lunch money. I think cash should be an option, but at this age many kids aren't good at keeping track of money.
I have a 42 year old son who supposedly fathered two children at the age of 18. At least he paid for two abortions.
If I knew which landfills my only grandchildren were in, I would visit their graves. </disgust> Sorry!
Eliminate government schools and you solve the problem.
Kroger ain't the only game in town. In Atlanta, where Kroger & Publix go head to head for top market share, Publix advertises that they DON'T require a card to get discounted prices.
Result? Kroger continues to lose market share to Publix here. Kroger's been the market leader for many years; Publix entered in the mid 90's. Publix is on track to become number one within the year.
Nope, the lunch bag will be banned.
It may contain a weapon. The thermos may be a bomb. Hey! Stuff Happens!
"Brown-bagging would remove the problem entirely"
That is, until they (the school govt) saw EVERYONE doing it. Then they would quickly write up a rule outlawing THOSE as well.
If you ever get to go to a Whole Foods Market, you'll think you died and went to heaven. A full supermarket with primary focus on healthy foods, fresh foods and international foods. I think the closest to you would probably be up in Chicago.
Plus we've got what's got to be one of the largest Farmer's Markets in the world. It's the size of about 1 1/2 football fields inside, and has fresh everything, along with just about any international anything that you could ever want. I took my folks in when they came to visit, and they couldn't get over what all was there.
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