Do kids need immediate access to cell phones during school hours?

Seriously? It's been years since I've seen one. My middle-schooler doesn't have them.

 

I should rephrase. I haven't seen one middle school or high school. Now that I think about it, I have seen elementary schools without lockers.

 

I would rather have a teacher keep my kid's cell phone than keep it in their locker. It would get stolen in about two seconds.

 

I was a long-term sub last year, and am getting my certification currently. It was easy at the school at which I taught (also my alma mater) because the area under the desks was wide open, so it was easy to see when they had their phones in their laps. My school also has a tough penalty: first offense is taken away for class, second offense is the kid loses it for a month, third is it's banned permanently.

Christ, when I went to college, the big thing was to do crossword puzzles during class. Cellphones take it to a whole different level, it seems. In a way, I'm kind of glad they hadn't taken off yet in the mid-to-late 90s.

But yes, students made it hundreds of years without cell phones, and they can continue.

 

The elementary schools were I'm from don't have lockers - isn't there the assumption that you have just one or two teachers a day at that level, and they know how to properly balance out the backpack weight? i.e. You're not going to give a third grader 15 assignments that require them to take home 10 books, and since you're in the same classroom all day, they aren't lugging much stuff from class to class.

 

The school district where I live (and where I periodically substitute teach) banned cell phones for the entire district (30,000-plus students). If a teacher sees a cell phone it can be confiscated. It's made teaching in the district much easier.

 

cell-phone rule here in our town is: if a teacher or any school official sees a child with a cell phone during school hours (excluding lunch) it is confiscated until the end of the day and parents are notified.

by all accounts, it's worked very well. kids understand that school time is the school's time, as mr. hand would say. the day ends, whip out the phone and text/call to your heart's delight.

i don't believe the kids stash their cells in their lockers, fearing theft. i believe they keep it "off" and tucked in their pockets, backpacks or whatever it is they tote around all day.

 

My kids will have cell phones when they're about 8 or 9.

Why? MY convenience.

Practice got out early? Call me so I can pick you up. I think of those hours my mom spent sitting in the car waiting for my football practices to get out and I cringe.

I have friends who have an 8 and a 9 year-old. Both have phones. Each phone has GPS, so the parents can go to the computer at any time, and it can tell them exactly where their kids are. Each phone is programmed with five emergency numbers. They can call their parents, grandparents and 2-3 other emergency contacts and that's it. I think they pay $20 a month for them.

As a parent, that's a no-brainer for your kids to have.

Kids texting in school? They should be suspended.

 

yup. i meant tis point in my post on the other cell-phone thread. it's why most parents allow their third graders to have cells now, when their initial reaction was, "that's too young."

it's for the parents' convenience, no longer just as luxury item for kids to show off and abuse. but if abused, the hammer must come down, even if it means as a parent you're occasionally inconvenienced by it.

hey, inconvenience is part of being a parent. our parents were inconvenienced by us, after all. suck it up.

 

You are spot on, and mine will have one as soon as she is old enough to go somewhere without me.

Suspended? C'mon man. Trust me, the pickup is enough.

Now you want to really get cute? Does the scghool have the right to look at the incoming texts once they have the phone? My answer is no.

 

Absolutely not. That's private.

It should also be pointed out that the Columbine Massacre broke because students who were trapped inside called people on their cell phones.

I think students should be allowed to have them at school. They just shouldn't be allowed to use them in school.

 

Broke as a news story? Yes.

But by the time the cameras were there, the shooters had lain dead for quite some time. The trapped students were in no danger, even though they and the live TV audience had no way of knowing it.