Cell Phone Bans in Schools Around Country

[Anonymous]

And the projection onto others of people’s own concern about their personal cell phone use really shouldn’t be driving this.

[Anonymous]

I would love it if MCPS bought those locked punches. The technical bans aren’t sufficient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are technically banned in FCPS as well - however, kids are allowed to pull them out in advisory class, QST, lunch, passing periods, PE, and math class. It's a complete joke. Until schools get serious about banning phones, kids are going to continue to suffer.

In the video, it shows students putting the phones into locked pouches. If they did, the phone would not be available during the rest of the day.

I do wonder about kids who are addicted, but then shouldn't we be helping them to overcome the addiction? From what I have read, the phones are causing depression and anxiety.

They can access social media and YouTube on their Chromebook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are technically banned in FCPS as well - however, kids are allowed to pull them out in advisory class, QST, lunch, passing periods, PE, and math class. It's a complete joke. Until schools get serious about banning phones, kids are going to continue to suffer.

In the video, it shows students putting the phones into locked pouches. If they did, the phone would not be available during the rest of the day.

I do wonder about kids who are addicted, but then shouldn't we be helping them to overcome the addiction? From what I have read, the phones are causing depression and anxiety.

They can access social media and YouTube on their Chromebook.

Can't get to major social media or youtube directly on chromebooks. They have to backdoor it, which slows down a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Until the teacher/school assume liability for the replacement cost of very expensive cell phones, the idea of “collecting” them seems a poor plan. If they want to say no cell phones, then storage issues come up. And some kids need access to summon help in the event of, for example, a life-threatening allergic reaction — because otherwise their life is in the hands of some random third party.

Nope. If a kid is breaking rules using a phone and it gets confiscated, that's on the kid and kid's family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rampant use of phones in work place too! Since most jobs are paper / e-paper pushing jobs, many people have time to surf. #brave new world. READ that book!

Agree adults working many jobs are very distracted by their phones!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are technically banned in FCPS as well - however, kids are allowed to pull them out in advisory class, QST, lunch, passing periods, PE, and math class. It's a complete joke. Until schools get serious about banning phones, kids are going to continue to suffer.

In the video, it shows students putting the phones into locked pouches. If they did, the phone would not be available during the rest of the day.

I do wonder about kids who are addicted, but then shouldn't we be helping them to overcome the addiction? From what I have read, the phones are causing depression and anxiety.

They can access social media and YouTube on their Chromebook.

Can't get to major social media or youtube directly on chromebooks. They have to backdoor it, which slows down a lot.

Yes, they can. My kid showed me and was doing it.

If you are concerned about your child having a phone, don't give them one or highly monitor it and restrict apps. You cannot control what others do but you can control your own kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Until the teacher/school assume liability for the replacement cost of very expensive cell phones, the idea of “collecting” them seems a poor plan. If they want to say no cell phones, then storage issues come up. And some kids need access to summon help in the event of, for example, a life-threatening allergic reaction — because otherwise their life is in the hands of some random third party.

Nope. If a kid is breaking rules using a phone and it gets confiscated, that's on the kid and kid's family.

This....put a good case on your child's phone with a screen protector. Parents can pick up phone after school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In theory, they are banned aren’t they? At my kids MS, the teachers will take them if they see them. My daughter has even had it confiscated in the hallway when she took it out to check to see if I’d responded to one of her texts. It’s one reason the kids all cluster in the bathroom on their phones.

I think the issue is more enforcement. Especially the Hs teachers don’t want to be in a position of getting into a power struggle with some teen over their phone. If the teacher tries to confiscate the phone and the student refuses, are they gojng to suspend a student over that? Call the parents?

The phone issue is just sooooo not a big issue for me. I’d much rather the teachers have a functional way to clear the halls of disruptive students and confiscate vape pens. Banning the phones just increases the bathroom problem, as certain kids will spend the day is sitting in the stalls scrolling tiktok.

I’d be curious on the perspective of the HS teachers.

Do you even hear yourself? Of course its soooooo not a big issue for you-you're not the one in the classroom dealing with the problem. Until you sign up to sub or become a teacher, don't comment on issues that don't actually affect you. Your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would love it if MCPS bought those locked punches. The technical bans aren’t sufficient.

+1000
I'm a HS teacher and the real issue isn't use during class time (although that can be a distraction), it is the non-stop use by students as soon as they think their work is done, through the 5 minute passing period, and into the next class until prompted by the teacher to put them away. It's spending the entire lunch period staring at their phone instead of talking with friends. The saddest thing I see every morning is walking down a hall with 40 kids sitting on the floor staring at their phones, earbuds in, outside their classrooms waiting for the morning bell. They don't talk with each other like they used to. They don't joke around and tell each other interesting things they saw the previous day or discuss what they are doing after school.

Smartphones allow each person to have an individualizes stream of music, media, social media, videos, games, etc. and the kids don't have shared experiences to draw on for social connection. The mental health crisis isn't about what they see on social media, it's their self-imposed social isolation from peers in real life. Students are becoming more and more disconnected from each other and really can't have general conversations at all with peers. This is a huge impact in class when they are supposed to work together. They can't even negotiate who shares their idea first or who is going to write down the lab data or who is going to read which part. They won't compare and discuss answers to worksheets, when an important part of the learning IS having that conversation and then discussing when answers are different.

Don't be deceived by the extroverts or the kids who have friends from elementary school. Are they making new friends? Are they making actual connections with teammates and clubmates, and not just superficial busyness. My classes used to be 25% very social "popular" kids who were friends with everyone, 50% average kids who were chatty with their groups and had a couple of good friends in each class, 25% quiet kids who had another quiet buddy in each class, with just 1 or 2 kids per class who were very disconnected from peers. Now its barely 25% chatty in groups, 50% silent with no connections to others, and 25% so disconnected that they are absent 25-75% of the time. And I'm talking Honors classes.

I think investing in the Yondr pouches at least for middle school would have a bigger impact on academic achievement and mental health than any curricular changes would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love it if MCPS bought those locked punches. The technical bans aren’t sufficient.

+1000
I'm a HS teacher and the real issue isn't use during class time (although that can be a distraction), it is the non-stop use by students as soon as they think their work is done, through the 5 minute passing period, and into the next class until prompted by the teacher to put them away. It's spending the entire lunch period staring at their phone instead of talking with friends. The saddest thing I see every morning is walking down a hall with 40 kids sitting on the floor staring at their phones, earbuds in, outside their classrooms waiting for the morning bell. They don't talk with each other like they used to. They don't joke around and tell each other interesting things they saw the previous day or discuss what they are doing after school.

Smartphones allow each person to have an individualizes stream of music, media, social media, videos, games, etc. and the kids don't have shared experiences to draw on for social connection. The mental health crisis isn't about what they see on social media, it's their self-imposed social isolation from peers in real life. Students are becoming more and more disconnected from each other and really can't have general conversations at all with peers. This is a huge impact in class when they are supposed to work together. They can't even negotiate who shares their idea first or who is going to write down the lab data or who is going to read which part. They won't compare and discuss answers to worksheets, when an important part of the learning IS having that conversation and then discussing when answers are different.

Don't be deceived by the extroverts or the kids who have friends from elementary school. Are they making new friends? Are they making actual connections with teammates and clubmates, and not just superficial busyness. My classes used to be 25% very social "popular" kids who were friends with everyone, 50% average kids who were chatty with their groups and had a couple of good friends in each class, 25% quiet kids who had another quiet buddy in each class, with just 1 or 2 kids per class who were very disconnected from peers. Now its barely 25% chatty in groups, 50% silent with no connections to others, and 25% so disconnected that they are absent 25-75% of the time. And I'm talking Honors classes.

I think investing in the Yondr pouches at least for middle school would have a bigger impact on academic achievement and mental health than any curricular changes would.

Maybe the chatty went to on-level classes?

[Anonymous]

I think it will work as long as most people do it. If no one had phone at school, then it would be fine. It would be like it was years ago… parents would have to go through the office to communicate with their kids.

I’m a parent that bought my 5th grader a phone in 2013 so that I could track the school bus while I was racing to the bus stop from work every day. However, it was in the bottom of his backpack and none of his friends had one. I would think if everyone else had a phone he would want to take his out too. But he never did. If I needed to contact him during the day I would call the office like every other parent.

Crazy story… soccer practice ended about 30 min early because of lightning and the kids waited in the coaches car until the parents got there. I asked my son Why he didn’t just call me, and he said I told him never to take it out of his bag.

[Anonymous]

Omg. Just give your MS kid an old fashioned back in style flip phone for emergency use which by the way can be used to chat as well. They can surf when they get home under your supervision. Afraid though most families will not be switching back to those flip phones. Sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In theory, they are banned aren’t they? At my kids MS, the teachers will take them if they see them. My daughter has even had it confiscated in the hallway when she took it out to check to see if I’d responded to one of her texts. It’s one reason the kids all cluster in the bathroom on their phones.

I think the issue is more enforcement. Especially the Hs teachers don’t want to be in a position of getting into a power struggle with some teen over their phone. If the teacher tries to confiscate the phone and the student refuses, are they gojng to suspend a student over that? Call the parents?

The phone issue is just sooooo not a big issue for me. I’d much rather the teachers have a functional way to clear the halls of disruptive students and confiscate vape pens. Banning the phones just increases the bathroom problem, as certain kids will spend the day is sitting in the stalls scrolling tiktok.

I’d be curious on the perspective of the HS teachers.

Do you even hear yourself? Of course its soooooo not a big issue for you-you're not the one in the classroom dealing with the problem. Until you sign up to sub or become a teacher, don't comment on issues that don't actually affect you. Your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.

I did mean as a parent and I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the teachers—that’s why I’d like their views. But my understanding is that HS teachers do NOT want to be in charge in enforcing these bans, but do want help on clearing kids out of the hallways during class time and banning things like vape use in school. The latter two are my priority. A lot of my kids’ teachers say that is is fine to use your phone once you’ve finished a test (while other kids are taking it), or if the teacher is providing time in class to work on an assignment that the teen has already finished. In a lot of my teens’ classes, that is probably once a week.

I guess my larger point was that MCPs already forbids phones in school and the respectful kids obey when the teacher tells them to put it away. The real issue is that some kids don’t listen, whether that has to do with phones or with vapes or ditching class. I don’t think the teachers have any tools to deal with those kids, and I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to that. I think the priority to things like suspension should be first on the kids that are smoking week and disrupting classes by being loud in the hallways during class.

[Anonymous]

On the locked pouches….how did schools know whose phone is whose at the end of the day? There is a lot of theft of cell phones at our MS. The kids won’t leave them in their lockers because the lockers get broken into a lot. The bags seem like they would work for small private schools but I just don’t see how they would work for schools with almost a thousand kids.

I feel like this system might work—if teacher sees it out, kid is told put it away. If it doesn’t go away, email goes to parent annd child given lunch detention. After 3 emails to parent, parent must come in to schoo for a meeting with school admin and child. If parent doesn’t, or after 2 such meetings, child is suspended.

But even that would require teachers taking the time to email an admin every day with list of non compliant kids, an admin to email the parents and track it, and the willingness to actually suspend repeat offenders.

Another idea is that they could actually block reception in school. My HS kid is not on his cell at all during school because there is zero reception in his concrete block basement room buildings (which I confirmed during back to school night, when I couldn’t text my spouse to tell them it was running late.). My other Hs kid, at a different HS, has reception all day, though.