From the Dept. of Unintended Consequences
or not so unintended...
The lunch lines weren’t moving fast enough for Linda Stoll, head of food programs at the Boulder Valley, Colo., school district. Because of that, kids had barely enough time to sit and eat before the lunch period was over. So, last year, Stoll began looking for ways to speed up the queue. She discovered that many students, especially kindergarteners, can’t remember their six-digit ID number, which they’re required to type into keypads at the end of lunch lines. She then found out that there was technology that would allow a scanner to identify a kid qualified for lunch ...It would help kids who regularly forget their lunch money, and it would potentially remove some of the stigma faced by children who receive special tickets for free or reduced lunch.
For the Chiiiildren™
[except those “who can’t have an image taken of them because of religious or cultural issues”
void where prohibited]
Let’s see if we understand this. A 6-digit number (which most 6-year-olds know about 20 of anyway - surely?) that everybody has to punch in (showing that little Johnny X was at point Y at time Z) is no problem, no invasion of privacy, but a fingerprint (that shows the same thing) is.
More than that, a 6-digit number is good for 1 million students. I heard that classes were getting bigger, but that’s ridiculous.
I leave the larger question - why kids have to show ID to get lunch - to philosophers.
Posted by ZZMike on 10/01/07 at 11:19 AM
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