Schools - grabbing money while taking away your rights

All I hear is that I need to get out of California and move to a more prepper friendly, less government state.  I don't know if there really is one anymore.  I'm thinking that almost anywhere you live, if it's not in a large city, you can be a successful prepper.  I know that folks in the city prep the best they can but they really have to work hard to stay under the radar. 

I've heard great things about Texas.  A family on one of the blogs I follow "escaped" from California to Texas.  They choose Texas because it's wide open and doesn't have too many rules.  I hope after living there for a while they still find that to be true.  Perhaps it's because they are in the country and not in the city?  Another blogger lives in a large city in Texas.  They seem to prep very well in their apartment.  I worry about them if the city closes in on itself and attacks itself.  Will they be safe? 

Texas schools have been in the news this past week with some really incredible stories about infringing on rights and also some stupid decisions by their courts.  The first story was about a 17 year old girl who goes to high school and also works two jobs to help support her sister.  Her parent split up and both moved away!  She is taking advanced placement and college classes.  An honor student, she is obviously keeping up with her schoolwork.  Unfortunately she misses a lot of school.  The Texas judge warned her that she'd better not miss any more or he'd put her in jail.  Why?  Because he needed to make an example of her.  He had to let people know that being a good student and working extremely hard isn't good enough if you don't earn the school district the money it gets from the federal government for having the kids show up to school.  She missed another day and he sent her to jail for an overnight stay and fined her $100!

That's not all the state of Texas is doing to try to get extra money.  They also write tickets for students who get in fights, curse their teachers or are generally “disorderly” on school campuses.  Children as young as the age of 6 have been ticketed.  The fines range from $250-$500.  I liked it better when I was growing up.  If a kid misbehaved they got sent to the principal and if they were really bad they got sent to the vice principal who was in charge of "swats".  Now, if the grandkids misbehave their teacher contacts me and they get "swats" among other things like having to do something nice for the teacher or student that they bothered.

Neither of these top tracking students by implanting chips in their student ID.  Chips in students IDs were proposed in California but was defeated in court.  (I can't always complain about the ACLU) Many Texas school districts are doing this.  They try to sell it to the parents as a way to keep their children safe.  But their real reason for doing so is to be able to locate the kids on campus to be able to count them as in attendance so they can get their daily pay.  They get state and federal money dependent on how many students show up to school.  The Northside Independent School District plans to track students at two school campuses and then eventually include all 112 of its schools and 100,000 students. 

The district spokesperson said they want to "harness the power of technology to make schools safer, know where our students are all the time in a school, and increase revenues."  For now the chip readers will be installed at the schools and on the buses.  This is such a slippery slope.  They will be tracking where kids sit on the bus, at lunch, who they play with, are they getting enough exercise, etc.  At what point are they going to be put in everywhere else that the kids go?  The mall?  The movies?  Who are the kids hanging out with after hours?  Are they getting enough exercise or sitting in front of the tv?  Oh I forgot to mention, only authorized people will have access to the information.  Right.  Get the kids used to it and they'll accept it when they get older.  Are they going into our driver's licenses next?  Credit cards?  Even our bodies?  Wait, that's already been discussed for alzheimer's patients and such.

I just got into it with the grand kids school.  Boy has been absent too many times and I got the official notice stating that he couldn't be absent anymore or I'd have to bring in a doctor's note.  I sent a note back to the principal pointing out the California Education Code which states what is an acceptable absence - just about everything is acceptable if the parent says so.  Nowhere does it say if you have too many you have to get a note from the doctor.  Of all Boy's absences, only one - a week after I received the note - was he out for actually being sick!  I, of course, refused to bring him to the doctor to get a note. 

No matter where you call home, if you have kids the outside world is doing its best to get into your business at home or make money off your family.  You have to stay on top of things whether you are in a good prepper state or not.