My kids college requires temp check every morning and filling out a symptom checking app. No social distance app, but kids who violate social distance are counseled and it happens a gain are sent home. Party hosts are expelled. Party attendees are suspended and sent home. It is spelled out in bold letters that if you can’t live with the conditions on residential life, you should choose remote learning, or take a leave of absence or gap year— which are being granted this year.

They mean business, and I’m glad. With singles for all students, a trimester system so 2/3 of kids are on campus at a time (sophomore and juniors get stuck with a May to August semester), regular testing, grab and go and outside dining, masks unless you a eating, showering or along in your room, tents going up for outside lectures this fall, my kid stands a chance at a residential year. With most classes in person.

I went through the restrictions with my kid before he signed the agreement. He knows the rules and is choosing to attend. We gave him the option of remote learning or gap year. I’m thankful that the college has put some much time and thought and money into trying to make residential work. But, it only works if all the members of the community mask up and follows rules. It take one large party to bring the whole plan down.

OP— if your kid doesn’t agree with the rules, no one is making him attend. Without a strict code of conduct that all kids must follow, no college is going to make it a month.

This is Oberlin BTW. Th don’t taking infringing on kids freedom lightly.

Anonymous wrote:Tech students are working on an app to fool the tracking app as we speak....

Don't need an app, they just have to leave their phone home.

Let me blow your minds even more: my 19 yo does not have a smartphone -NP

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My guess is people will just start leaving their cell phones back at the room. Do social gatherings old school style where you agreed on the date/time/place to meet in advance.

OMG that's hysterical! College kids sneaking off of campus in the middle of the night leaving their call phones at home to meet up somewhere...

Truth is, kids will just get two phones, won't they?

OMG, sure, it's just hysterical that college kids will sneak off campus and spread the virus to the local community and college employees and each other! And the two phones thing is just sooooo clever and funny! That'll show those boring old administrators they can't stop the partying!

...This is why colleges will shut down again, and students will head home, having spread the virus on campus and into their college towns, and taking the virus home with them to spread to their families, their parents' coworkers, their siblings....

I pray you're not a parent. You sound more like a teenager trolling here. If you ARE a parent of a college student, you'd probably just shrug at your kid getting that second phone and sneaking off campus. Thanks for making the pandemic last longer for everyone.

I AM a parent, a parent of a college kid who has to stay home this year because his campus is closed.

The hysterical thing is thinking of college kids being willing to be social without their phones. Have you seen a teenager without access to a phone for more than 20 minutes? They go through withdrawal symptoms. Having to plan ahead and meet up with other students without using iphone technology makes me think of Dumbledore's Army sending secret messages via magic coins.

DP. My kid has gone weeks without a smartphone working at a camp. It’s not that hard.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My guess is people will just start leaving their cell phones back at the room. Do social gatherings old school style where you agreed on the date/time/place to meet in advance.

OMG that's hysterical! College kids sneaking off of campus in the middle of the night leaving their call phones at home to meet up somewhere...

Truth is, kids will just get two phones, won't they?

OMG, sure, it's just hysterical that college kids will sneak off campus and spread the virus to the local community and college employees and each other! And the two phones thing is just sooooo clever and funny! That'll show those boring old administrators they can't stop the partying!

...This is why colleges will shut down again, and students will head home, having spread the virus on campus and into their college towns, and taking the virus home with them to spread to their families, their parents' coworkers, their siblings....

I pray you're not a parent. You sound more like a teenager trolling here. If you ARE a parent of a college student, you'd probably just shrug at your kid getting that second phone and sneaking off campus. Thanks for making the pandemic last longer for everyone.

I AM a parent, a parent of a college kid who has to stay home this year because his campus is closed.

The hysterical thing is thinking of college kids being willing to be social without their phones. Have you seen a teenager without access to a phone for more than 20 minutes? They go through withdrawal symptoms. Having to plan ahead and meet up with other students without using iphone technology makes me think of Dumbledore's Army sending secret messages via magic coins.

Anonymous wrote:These apps predated COVID and are now being deployed for public health reasons. https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/28/21112456/spotteredu-degree-analytics-student-location-tracking-app-attendance

Yep. There was a recent WaPO article about this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Turn off phone. Leave in dorm.

My employer has "tracked" out outside sales reps for years.

They turn off the phone when they don't want to be tracked.

Some of these trackers will know if the phone is off and the student will be penalized. Not that hard.

And...You do realize that the college can find them in their classes and drag their sorry, cheating backsides out to tell them either they carry the designated phone or they can go home, right?

If they leave the phone off enough of the time, they should be sent home to do classes virtually and lose the privilege of being on campus. Period. Oh, and no refund of room and board or fees or anything else. In fact there should be a monetary penalty for the PARENTS if the student is an ass and tries to be clever with the phone. Sure, the students are adults, as people here love to say over and over. But if they act like children, their parents should have to pay for the college's effort to track them down and find out why their phone is off. Colleges need to go harda$$ on this idiocy.

The college can require a kid to have a smartphone?

Anonymous wrote:Turn off phone. Leave in dorm.

My employer has "tracked" out outside sales reps for years.

They turn off the phone when they don't want to be tracked.

Some of these trackers will know if the phone is off and the student will be penalized. Not that hard.

And...You do realize that the college can find them in their classes and drag their sorry, cheating backsides out to tell them either they carry the designated phone or they can go home, right?

If they leave the phone off enough of the time, they should be sent home to do classes virtually and lose the privilege of being on campus. Period. Oh, and no refund of room and board or fees or anything else. In fact there should be a monetary penalty for the PARENTS if the student is an ass and tries to be clever with the phone. Sure, the students are adults, as people here love to say over and over. But if they act like children, their parents should have to pay for the college's effort to track them down and find out why their phone is off. Colleges need to go harda$$ on this idiocy.

leave phone in dorm with software

second burner phone for actual use

I am sure there will be many levels of warnings before expulsions..especially it there has not been any virus found on the campus.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My guess is people will just start leaving their cell phones back at the room. Do social gatherings old school style where you agreed on the date/time/place to meet in advance.

OMG that's hysterical! College kids sneaking off of campus in the middle of the night leaving their call phones at home to meet up somewhere...

Truth is, kids will just get two phones, won't they?

OMG, sure, it's just hysterical that college kids will sneak off campus and spread the virus to the local community and college employees and each other! And the two phones thing is just sooooo clever and funny! That'll show those boring old administrators they can't stop the partying!

...This is why colleges will shut down again, and students will head home, having spread the virus on campus and into their college towns, and taking the virus home with them to spread to their families, their parents' coworkers, their siblings....

I pray you're not a parent. You sound more like a teenager trolling here. If you ARE a parent of a college student, you'd probably just shrug at your kid getting that second phone and sneaking off campus. Thanks for making the pandemic last longer for everyone.

Turn off phone. Leave in dorm.

My employer has "tracked" out outside sales reps for years.

They turn off the phone when they don't want to be tracked.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCs college sent an email requiring all student to sign a Covid-19 safety agreement and download a tracking app. The can be expelled for large gatherings (parties) because it violates the social distancing rules if the agreement. If DC doesn't comply with the agreement and app their classes will be dropped automatically.

Seems like China. But here we are.

I love this idea. Health and safety trumps all IMO.

You don't really think that. You only feel this way because you are still earning money and able to pay others to do high risk things for you. If we were all under a true lockdown for months, my guess is that you'd feel differently.

Not the PP you're responding to (and I see that PP answered you earlier in the thread). It's beyond insulting to tell that poster what she does or doesn't think.

We NEED a true lockdown for months. Real and total except for "essential for life" activities -- food shopping (limited), hospitals and certain clinical care, basic services like electric/water/safety. We need landlords and mortgage companies to be ordered to pause, evictions put on hold. A pause on schools (yes, including colleges). PPP and/or serious safety net payments, whether it's in the form of unemployment or a temporary universal basic income. That would help those you seem to be concerned about--right?

And enforcement, because too many adults in this country cannot behave for the public good but consider their wants to be "needs."

If students are going back to colleges, which is utterly foolish considering the country's pandemic overall is worsening and not improving -- the kinds of tracking and restrictions and punishments people are discussing here are essential. It should be one strike and you're out, told you have 24 hours to get your stuff and be off campus by any means you can find.

yes, I have a college student who is returning in person to a small college with a very detailed plan, in an extremely low-covid county in a low-covid state. And they still are confining all students to campus all semester long -- you can't leave (except for medical emergency treatment). I hope they track the kids every minute and make examples of any who don't stay put, mask up, and observe the distancing that's been ordered. I still would prefer a semester fully at home but we've decided jointly that DC will do this. If DC were caught violating the deal -- I'd support DC being punished.

What college is this?

If you don’t like the tracking apps, stay home. Simple.