Cellphone ban in schools?

Toronto Board of Education wants to ban cellphone use in classrooms and hallways. Seems reasonable to me. Astonishingly, some parents oppose it.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/177052

Northern parent Helga Teitsson said she would oppose an "outright ban, because as a parent, I rely on being able to have access to my kids to remind them of the dentist or another appointment." Earlier this week, her Grade 10 daughter used her cell to remind Teitsson of an after-school volleyball game.

And this made me laugh:

Yet not all students would mind cutting their parents off the cellular apron string. One Grade 12 student at Northern recently answered his cellphone during class, only to hear his father on the line.

While the class watched, he listened to his father announce the menu for that night's supper: Beefaroni.

 

Cellphones have been banned in schools in Texas since at least 1996.

 

It should be banned in schools. It isn't necessary. Parents can write notes to their kids in the morning about what they need to remember if their kids will forget.

If there is an emergency, schools have measures in place to take care of such things.

 

I know my kids' high school has a ban in place but it's a school initiated ban. I would have figured that with about 500 schools in Toronto, the Board would have had a policy in place by now. It's not like cellphones were invented last week.

 

If you're a student and your school has banned cell phones, put the damn thing on vibrate and leave it in your pocket or locker. In the short time I worked retail, I was told no cell phones on the floor. Fuck that, I put it on vibrate and left it in my pocket.
The problem is when the cell phone becomes a distraction in the classroom.

 

When I worked PT for a year, they told me "no cell phones". So I shoved the stupid thing on silent and took well-guarded peeks at it every so often. Dammit, I have a real job and I'm not going to let it go to pot just because you're trying to crack down on 17-year-old text messagers.

 

I'm so glad cell phones weren't widely available when I was in high school. My parents would have been calling me every fucking five minutes.

 

They banned cellphones in the high schools near my place recently.

After a fight broke out at a boys basketball game, some students called their brothers and cousins and friends and such to come join in and it became a Pier 6 brawl. They enacted the ban shortly thereafter.

 

Son (13) has had a cellphone since the start of the school year. Only concern is running up my bill, but it's absolutely necessary in terms of after school communication. It has to be off during school hours. If if goes off during school hours, it's taken away and I have to go to the school to pick it up and pay a $15 fine. In turn, I make my kid pay me back with extra house work. Has only happened once.

 

We never had a ban per se, but kids carried their cell phones with them in class. If they were caught using the phone, it was taken away from them.

I think cell phones should be banned in high school classrooms all across the country.

 

Just out of curiosity, what makes it absolutely necessary? Just wonderin'.

 

Maybe standman and mrs. standman both work in the afternoons and standman junior has extracurricular stuff after school? That's the reason my mom is thinking of getting my little sisters (one's 14 and the other is 12) cell phones.