What Privacy?

There is  a company in Wilmington, NC named Education Management Systems. They have  a division  called MealsPlus which I presume is the part of the company that deals with food service. I meandered around the web site for a while and didn’t learn a lot other than they have been in business for about 20 years and their food service division has a number of school systems as customers in a number of states.

One of their services allows parents to track what their children are buying for breakfast and lunch while at school.The goal- why reducing childhood obesity of course. For a mere $10 annually parents can get a 45 day history of what their child is buying. Our local system, Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County, has just  signed on to the service. Neighboring school systems in Dare and Currituck counties also have subscribed  the service.

When reading about this, I really wasn’t sure what I thought and I am  still  a bit unsure. As my wife pointed  out, because one’s child is buying the right things doesn’t necessarily mean that he or she is eating that food. I also wonder what the participation is in the program and could  it eventually become mandatory for parents to take part? For example, including maybe bundling the fee in with other required items?

But with such a worthy goal, who could possibly complain about  a little more intrusion and  a little more monitoring? While you are chewing( pun intended) on that think about this. School officials in New Canaan, Ct are in the very preliminary stages of considering if they should  add radio frequency tags to student and staff  id cards  and possibly place them on school property. School superintendent  Dr David Abbey said student involvement would be voluntary and that parents would  have to agree. Glad we got that cleared up.

I realize that about the only things  connecting these  two accounts  is technology and the benefit to the children. Can never disagree with something that’s good for the children. Why then do both programs leave   me  with an uneasy feeling?

Related Articles

• D.C.schools refuse to disclose food-rebate accounting (grist.org)
• Forget Hall Monitors, School Investigates Tracking Students with RFID (readwriteweb.com)