We received two emails from concerned parents in Alpine School District. This isn’t necessarily directly related to Common Core, but it does relate to data tracking and privacy concerns.
“My granddaughter attends school in Alpine School District. She came home with a disclosure document from her junior high P.E. teacher that indicated that all student in the class would be required to wear heart monitors and if they didn’t it would affect their grade. Do you know anything about this?”
“My daughter attends school at _____, in the Alpine School District. The school is requiring all students to wear heart monitors during gym class. I sent the gym teacher an email saying I do not want my daughter to be electronically monitored. The vice Principal responded with a letter saying that there is a firm expectation that all students comply, and the students grade will be affected by way of participation points. In researching this I found that other states implemented this and in the end the students ended up having to wear monitors even when at home. I do not want my daughter to be monitored in this way and I want to know my legal options. If you can help or know where I can get help, please contact me via email. Thank you for your time.”
I sent an email to some of the school board members and got this reply back.
“Parents have the right to opt their children out of all this database stuff: database monitoring (FitnessGram testing), heart monitoring, etc. You are to simply send a note to the teacher and request an alternate assignment for this kind of thing.”
You should definitely ask your children about what’s happening in their classes. Be more involved than ever this year. You have to be vigilant and know who is teaching them and their philosophies. I know of two middle school teachers at different schools in Alpine district who have convinced children that communism isn’t really all that bad, and parents were unaware this was happening until after the fact. You need to know what is happening in the classroom and take a stand or pull your child out to homeschool for some or all of the classes. If you do a partial pull out it’s called dual-enrollment and that’s what I’m doing with one of my children that wants electives at the school but we don’t want her being taught Common Core math.
Here’s a fascinating infographic on homeschoolers you may be interested in.
Are they doing this for some kind of grant or paid study?
This isnt new they did monitors last year as well, just no one cared now they do.
At the elementary level they did a study last year having a few students wearing monitors for 1 week, I believe for a grant.
Talk to teacher but be ready for the alternate assignments your student will get.
My daughter brought the same paper home last year. I was concerned, but she was told that it was being done by a BYU student for a project/study they were doing. I was told that it would not affect her grade if she did not do it. Now it sounds less like a study and with more pressure to participate.
Doesn’t this violate HIPAA laws? Isn’t this a confidential medical condition that by law is only information for the patient?
I appreciate the information in the homeschooling infographic presented in the weblink; however, I would like to point out that the K-12 online program is still a government funded school and that homeschooling is much more than attending public school at home. Students in this program are still receiving the same curriculum, testing, data tracking, textbooks, and propaganda that the rest of government schools students receive. The HSLDA* cautions families about accepting government funds, such as virtual charter school programs that are run by the local public school. These programs could be intended and used to divert homeschoolers into legal requirements that might not be entirely clear at this time. In my opinion they are a Trojan Horse. (* http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2013/201308160.asp)
I agree. The K-12 program is essentially public school at home, not homeschooling.
I currently homeschool my children but this year we are enrolled at a charter school that allows them to do elective courses on site 1 day a week and I am in charge of all their core curriculum to be done at home. I have chosen my own core and that is not tied to any school–it is curriculum I paid for myself and I alone am in charge of. But because I am enrolled in a school district I did have to enroll my students (send in vaccination reports, birth certificate, ect.) and I did have to agree to have the quarterly DIBELS testing done. I am I wondering if AIR/SAGE has taken over the DIBELS tests for 1-3 grades and/or the CRT tests for 4-6 grades. Theses are not end of year tests, but rather quarterly tests. I do not want to be a part of that database.
Good heavens! The heart monitor is meant to customize their exercise regimen to the individual student rather than use a one-size fits all body-type approach. Are people on this website really this delusional and paranoid? I about fell off of my sofa when I read this post and the subsequent comments. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Did you read the level of measurement enforced above? Wearing a monitor even at home? If you’re unaware of the monitoring mania that Gates and friends are trying to bring on our children to better understand their behavior and conditioning, please check out this article.
https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/monitoring-and-conditioning-our-children/
Dude, I would be more worried about the NSA monitoring the texts, phone calls, and social media activity of our kids than a PE teacher trying to customize and exercise routine for a class. While you are after the small fish via the “common core” the big fish are getting away. Did you attend the anti-NSA rally this summer?