Instead of juvenile detention, 15-year-old freshman Jaime Pacheco of East Dallas was chosen by a judge to be enrolled in a pilot program in which chronically truant students are monitored electronically, the New York Times reports. Since Jaime started carrying around a Global Positioning System earlier this year, he has had perfect attendance. "I’m just glad they didn’t take him to jail," said Jaime’s grandmother Diana Mendez, who raised him. "He’s a good kid. He was just on a crooked path." Educators are struggling to meet stricter state and federal mandates on attendance and graduation rates. The Dallas Independent School District, which–like other large districts–has found it difficult to manage the large numbers of truant students, is among the first in the nation to experiment with electronic monitoring to curb truancy…

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