grandma mode Discipline tags assigned to School Visitor number 5 School Visitor number 8 School Visitor number 11 Your violation of school rules will be reported to your employer Rossum Technologies Additional discipline tag assigned to Student M Zelaster Clear the hallways Please keep the hallways clean and safe Max didn’t stick around to hear the rest She headed for class before she got hit with any more dTags She already had way too many
1 3 HOMEROOM Oh man said Biggs Good-bye Robot Integration Program I told you anything with the initials RIP was doomed Rest in Peace RIP Yes thought Max he did tell us that about fifty times Those technicians looked pretty mad said Simeon Yeah said Krysti they came running up Don’t touch it Don’t touch it Did they think you were going to give it mouth-to-mouth or something Yeah repeated Biggs way too loud as usual And then Max goes Luckily Max didn’t have to hear anymore because a tone sounded over the loudspeakers their desks lit up and their science and homeroom teacher Ms French said Now I know there was a lot of excitement in the hall this morning But we can’t let it get us off track This week’s
UpGrade testing is just around the corner whether there’s a robot in school or not I suggest you use your homeroom time to review Ugh thought Max Reviewing for an UpGrade test was about the last thing she wanted to do But sometimes it felt like it was the only thing she ever did The tests were in every class every week And you had better make sure your UpGrade level never went down Everything at this school was focused on UpGrading It was all part of a new Federal School Board program called Constant UpGrade Although the students had their own names for it The Constant UpGrade program was supposed to be a revolution in education with cutting-edge technology like Barbara But it had turned out to mostly be a giant pain in the butt The cutting-edge technology was always yelling at you and with the constant testing none of the classes were any fun Since teachers got their own CUG scores all they seemed to care about was preparing for the next test And making it all even worse parents received constant updates on everything from their child’s test scores to dTags Bomb a test or do something dumb and Barbara would be sure your parents heard about it in real time Vanguard did have a human principal Mr Dorgas but everyone said whispered actually that Barbara was really in charge And they were right She wasn’t just running the school She WAS the school
Everything every door every camera every screen every sensor was connected into the central computer running the Barbara software All the janitor and lunchroom robots were under her control plus dozens of others the students never saw such as qScreen repair-bots heating duct cleaners and dumpsterdroids all rolling around on wheels or treads and mostly consisting of metallic appendages designed for their specific functions The goal of CUG was a perfect school higher test scores fewer discipline problems and cheaper to run Every part of the school must be Constantly UpGrading the students the teachers the learning materials the robots the flow of traffic in the halls attendance physical education achievements proper hand-washing the restrooms in Barbara gave everything a CUG score and that CUG score needed to keep going up Anything other than a constant upgrade in your Constant UpGrade score meant trouble Every student’s CUG score was recalculated in real time Attendance discipline and citizenship points were added or subtracted instantly Homework was graded by computer and students CUG scores were adjusted within the first minute of class And once a week came those Live UpGrade Assessments They were really just multiple-choice tests but they had a big and immediate impact on every student’s CUG score and on the teachers scores too
