Ankle Monitors for School Skippers?

Kids are required by law to go to school. The question is: for those who chronically cut class, what can we do? The Texas Attorney General says judges can make truant students wear ankle monitors.

He released his opinion this week. Now, the question is, will ankle monitors be the next to step to stopping truancy here in Harris County?

Deputy Constable Mitchell Meekins knows all about kids cutting class. As a member of the Harris County Precinct 6 Truancy Squad, he spends his days tracking truants. He gives a "thumbs up" to ankle monitors to electronically track students.

"I think that would help a whole lot," he says.

He thinks it would be a great deterrent.

"They might think twice about skipping school," says Meekins. "Kids are not big on being embarrassed, and that would embarrassing to go to school with an ankle bracelet on your ankle."

In April, more than a dozen Montgomery County high schoolers got tossed in jail for truancy violations. There, authorities are testing out a tracking device similar to an ankle monitor to keep tabs on kids.

It's a cell phone-size device the kids carry which requires them to punch in numbers on a keypad as they come and go, and contains GPS for verification. It's supplemented by personal wake-up calls to get kids out of bed and off to school, and counseling sessions over the phone.

Harris County hasn't tried electronic tracking for truants, but they're considering it. Authorities are examining ankle monitors and GPS systems for effectiveness-- and cost.

Harris County Constable Victor Trevino, the first in Texas to launch his truancy patrol 16 years ago, has long been backing this kind of tracking for truants.

"I believed in it a while back," he says, " but... who's going to invest the money?"

Electronic monitoring is not cheap, to be sure. But it's a lot cheaper, Trevino and others point out, than locking kids up in detention. And considering truants too often become drop-outs, who too often t

urn into adult offenders, many believe a deterrent such as electronic monitoring would more than pay off in the end.

"I think it's worth it," Trevino says, "if you look in the long run...All that money we spend locking people up? It's going to save money!"