GDS Phone Ban

[Anonymous]

As a teacher, I support any phone ban. I was the victim of a student in MS using their phone in class taking a picture of my backside in an unflattering way and only discovered it when I saw her on her phone. I took it away (our rule was MS students weren’t allowed to have phones out and we could confiscate and give to their advisor to hold for the remainder of the day), and it was face up on my desk, and I saw a picture of myself. I was humiliated. She barely got a slap on the wrist …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I support any phone ban. I was the victim of a student in MS using their phone in class taking a picture of my backside in an unflattering way and only discovered it when I saw her on her phone. I took it away (our rule was MS students weren’t allowed to have phones out and we could confiscate and give to their advisor to hold for the remainder of the day), and it was face up on my desk, and I saw a picture of myself. I was humiliated. She barely got a slap on the wrist …

That stinks. I'm sorry that happened.
Thank you for sharing this, though. It makes me understand the degree to which technology in hands has eroded boundaries and taboos. I was a rude and rebellious student back in the day, but I never would have taken my film camera into school and snapped a picture of a teacher's butt, much less distributed it. But once it's in the hand and it's silent to use and there's a greedy market of attention for shocking content, the sense of what's appropriate gets tossed in the trash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I teach at a school with a phone ban. Kids quickly adapt to doing several “phone” activities on their laptops. The boys play video games all day or watch YouTube and the girls text on their MacBooks and scroll TikTok online. Or online shop. They are just as zombie-like, but with bigger screens.

I hope schools realize that phones bans are a great first step, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

Screens should be down when kids are trying to listen to a teacher. The video game playing habits of a few kids ends up distracting the students trying to learn.

I agree, and it stinks that this has become your problem when it's the tech companies. In a world where there are innumerable paywalls and barriers etc etc, how has no one been able to invent a school-proof browser blocker? Why are games even allowed to exist if they can be smuggled in by students? I barely know anything about tech, so forgive my ignorance. I was a teacher until a few years ago and I remember the very smart IT dept just throwing up their hands and saying it was impossible to out-hack the students at their hacking.

[Anonymous]

The story from the teacher having to deal with an unflattering photo is atrocious, surprisingly common, and the result of a failure of schools and parents to reign in inappropriate tech usage. Schools HAVE thrown up their hands and said there’s nothing we can do, and the result is students that don’t know what is appropriate and don’t receive proper consequences when they bully or act disrespectfully (with or without technology).

Even if schools just did what they used to do, provide appropriate consequences like a detention, a loss of recess privileges, an in-school or out-of-school suspension,
or writing a letter to the teacher/class the situation would be much better. These are low stakes consequences and the earlier they happen the better, but schools are afraid of parents, and many parents can’t bear the thought of their child’s behavior being reprimanded.

Appropriate consequences is how we have kept school communities safe for everyone for decades. If we don’t have a better way to do it, doing nothing shouldn’t be the alternative.
Go back to what used to work, and make a few tweaks.

That’s why I fully support a phone ban in all schools - a real phone ban. Lock their phones, if they need to communicate with parents use email. Emergency calls can go through the front offices. Respect the learning environment and keep it safe for everyone.

[Anonymous]

NCS parent here, no bans announced for US so far. Have been wondering bc STA announced one at the end of last school year. I do communicate with my daughter during the day, usually wrt pick up plans after sports, meets etc. Not sure a phone ban will do what everyone hopes for as dd has told us that classmates are on tik tok, insta, playing video games and texting during classes. I think the horse has left the proverbial barn. If kids haven’t been taught when and where to use their phone/devices it’s going to be tough to change course. Of course when all of the adults are constantly on ours, we haven’t set a very good example.

[Anonymous]

GDS phone ban is to PREVENT content that is BASED and not WOKE from entering the SCHOOL. CENSORSHIP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:GDS phone ban is to PREVENT content that is BASED and not WOKE from entering the SCHOOL. CENSORSHIP!

Put the bottle down.

[Anonymous]

Our school already already required kids to leave their phones in holders in the classrooms (HS) and they were not allowed to be talking on them in the hallways. They’ve just added a phone ban during school gatherings, to which my kid immediately pointed out that at the gatherings they are always asking kids to take out their phones to play some game, so how is that supposed to work? First I’d learned how often they did that, so I sure hope that stops.

It’s an issue when the schools actively encourage stupid phone use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t like phone bans for hs. I have a recent grad and there were times we needed to be in touch and going through the school office would have been a pain. If you are just about ready to be in real world then the real world includes phones. I totally get bands for younger years but not hs. I also think it will drive kids to overuse phones after school. I have come to believe being too strict on anything has unintended consequence.

There is email to contact your student during the day....or call the school if it is urgent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t like phone bans for hs. I have a recent grad and there were times we needed to be in touch and going through the school office would have been a pain. If you are just about ready to be in real world then the real world includes phones. I totally get bands for younger years but not hs. I also think it will drive kids to overuse phones after school. I have come to believe being too strict on anything has unintended consequence.

I'm with you. If there is an emergency I want my kid to have the phone in his bag.

I'm a teacher and have a basket in the front of the room for any phones I see come out. Otherwise they can keep them in their bags. I find laptops to be more troublesome!

As a parent - I'm not expecting phones in the classroom to be a problem - as you say - teachers/school can say all phones turned in at the classroom door. The reason I like this ban is that there will be no phones in between classes and during free periods. Not because of time management for work....but because of socialization between kids. Having the phones away hopefully means they'll speak to one another face to face (at least at school). Hopefully it doesn't mean they turn to a computer instead to play games or text there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does every school have that or just GDS? I went to school down the street - I hate to be like back in my day! But back in my day, we did just sign out and back in when we left campus - and if we weren’t there for our first class, that’s how they knew we weren’t on campus. Sometimes kids snuck off campus and got in trouble and that was just life and part of growing up. This technology is not necessary.

I think Sidwell still works this way...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school uses SchoolPass but it’s for the parents to use when picking up a kid early, arriving late, or being out. If the kids are already in school and they are allowed to sign themselves out (only upperclassmen), they do by going to the front office and putting their pin/ID into the electronic device in the office - they don’t use the app on their phones. They have to do this for an unexcused late arrival, too.

There are, of course, other options. GDS just needs to find one. The fact that they didn't find one before rolling out the announcement that they are going to be phone free doesn't look good.

Who says they aren't working on rolling out an alternative to electronic sign in before the school year starts? They have an entire month between the cell phone ban announcement and the start of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school uses SchoolPass but it’s for the parents to use when picking up a kid early, arriving late, or being out. If the kids are already in school and they are allowed to sign themselves out (only upperclassmen), they do by going to the front office and putting their pin/ID into the electronic device in the office - they don’t use the app on their phones. They have to do this for an unexcused late arrival, too.

There are, of course, other options. GDS just needs to find one. The fact that they didn't find one before rolling out the announcement that they are going to be phone free doesn't look good.

Who says they aren't working on rolling out an alternative to electronic sign in before the school year starts? They have an entire month between the cell phone ban announcement and the start of school.

The school says so on their own website, which was posted above:

https://www.gds.org/hs-phone-policy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school uses SchoolPass but it’s for the parents to use when picking up a kid early, arriving late, or being out. If the kids are already in school and they are allowed to sign themselves out (only upperclassmen), they do by going to the front office and putting their pin/ID into the electronic device in the office - they don’t use the app on their phones. They have to do this for an unexcused late arrival, too.

There are, of course, other options. GDS just needs to find one. The fact that they didn't find one before rolling out the announcement that they are going to be phone free doesn't look good.

Who says they aren't working on rolling out an alternative to electronic sign in before the school year starts? They have an entire month between the cell phone ban announcement and the start of school.

The school says so on their own website, which was posted above:

https://www.gds.org/hs-phone-policy

To begin the school year, students will check in and out of school using SchoolPass. However, we are working on an alternate system which will not be dependent on phones.

To me - this says something will replace SchoolPass sooner rather than later...

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why they have to check in and check out / either they are at first period or they aren’t??? Do schools not take attendance anymore? Asking seriously as I have no idea. My oldest is about to start 9th grade.