Worst middle school safety plan ever taught a crucial lesson

My old school district made a host of dumb decisions back in the day. But this middle school safety plan was laughably bad on every facet.

Halfway through my first year in arguably the worst middle school known to man, the powers that be implemented a safety plan. And god almighty, was it strict.

Our principal, who wore a disgusted look every time they locked eyes with a kid, held a school-wide assembly. They held up an ID photo, and said in their most dangerous voice, “You will wear this, around your neck, throughout the duration of the school day.”

When someone finally asked what the point of it was, they said it was “part of our safety plan.” No, I didn’t ask the question. I was warding off a panic attack because I was scared senseless of falling through the gym’s bleachers.

They were a good ten feet or so in the air, and they had openings under the benches. I hated those bleachers, and I couldn’t wait to get both feet back on the gym floor again and head back to class. Not because I wanted to “learn”; I just wanted to get the hell away from those damn bleacher seats.

Myself, like everyone, took what they said at face value. They gave us our ID tags, we wore them around our necks, and that was that.

We wanted to feel like James Bond

Since we were in fifth grade, our IDs read 005. So, mine looked like this: TC Marti 005. My school photo sat under it. With those numbers, though, we realized it wouldn’t be long until our tags said 007. James Bond fans or not, we thought it’d look cool.

Problem was, we never got to feel like Bond, since they axed the program by the 2003-04 school year. Wanna know why that was?

Those ID tags gave us more of a reason to not pay attention in class. They were more fun to rip apart throughout the duration of the 2002-03 school year, when I was in sixth grade.

Halfway through that school year, my ID was, well, unrecognizable. And so was everyone else’s. It wasn’t long until the teacher quit passing them around. That safety plan never even made it a full school year, let alone two halves of two different school years.

I don’t know who was running it, but they obviously didn’t anticipate us chewing up those plastic tags and rendering them useless. The lesson? Don’t give a kid a plastic ID and think they’ll let it dangle from their neck all day.

A remedy for this issue scares the fuck outta me

Clearly, we were in the kind of, sort of digital age between 2001-02 and 2002-03. You know, the days before touchscreen phones came around and payphones were still a thing.

Part of me wishes that was still the case. Because, and I don’t doubt this’ll at least garner consideration, they’ll use digital ID for students and claim it’s part of a “safety plan.”

But if you were a parent, would you want your kid subjected to digital ID so they could attend a public school? One that’ll be stored in a database that a hacker could always breach? Or that those running that database could sell?

I wouldn’t want that for any kid. But if they’re already walking through metal detectors these days and locking students inside (I’m basing this on the schools in my neck of the woods), don’t put it past these psychos. They’ll claim it’s part of a “safety plan,” and maybe it genuinely is.

But when you look at the bigger picture, it’s just another legal loophole for those running that base to mine your kid’s data. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.

No data mining in my young adult academy fantasy

When you’re one of 32 competing schools, chances are, most parents won’t want you to have access to their kid’s data at the push of a button via a digital ID. In market-based education, this would be a lot tougher to come by, since markets would need to adhere to consumer demand.

That’s the message my young adult fantasy series, Arcane Elemental Academy, spreads. It tells a kick-ass story, don’t get me wrong. But you’re gonna see a good bit of libertarian-leaning elements here, including market-based education that gives parents and students actual choices.

No botched middle school safety plans here. What my protagonist, Yote Diamondback, and her peers are getting, is a high-quality education no public school prison is willing to offer. Catch the first three chapters of Book I, The Arcane Prophecy, now, and prepare to get hooked if YA fantasy with libertarian concepts is your thing.