Parent advocates who lobbied for Away All Day phone policy feel blindsided, ignored by new MCPS phone policy

[Anonymous]

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Raise your kids to pay attention in class, people. Or sufficiently so that they get good grades. We're an ADHD family, and even my kid with severe ADHD was able to tear himself away from his phone, listen to his teachers and do the actual work. He graduated with a 4.67 weighted GPA and a dozen APs.

Public schools do a lot for students, but at some point you need to live with system-wide decisions you won't like. Pull yourself together and deal with it.

Your kid doesn’t have severe ADHD.

PP you replied to. You want to see his neuropsychological results? You are being extremely offensive and have no clue about the hard work we put in, as a family, and the hard work he put in, plus the judicious use of Adderall.

Shame on you. Don't you dare minimize other people's struggles just because they have pushed themselves to achieve.

You actually minimize other people’s struggles when you claim that your kid has a “severe” neurodevelopmental disorder yet can get a 4.9 with multiple APs … and has no problem with distractions like cell phones. Lol.

DP.

It was a 4.67 and "severe" case of the zoomies, not level 3 autism.

As someone with severe adhd who went to Yale that PP should STFU—they clearly don’t know that people with adhd can have high IQ. I’m very dependent on my phone as an adult professional with adhd. It was recommended to my kid as part of their accommodations.

I totally believe you, since you clearly couldn’t get focused enough to read that 504 plans are not affected by the new policy. If you child has a 504 plan that includes use of a phone, your child can use it in class. I’m also saddened that a presumed graduate of Yale would write so poorly to not agree the introductory phrase with the subject.

No 504 plan should include use of a phone. FFS.

seriously...what disability requires that a personal cell phone must be used during school hours?

Glucose monitoring, for one. Medication reminders. Visual assistance for low vision and blind students.

How did students manage these things...oh... 15 years ago? Or children without a smart phone?

Sometimes they ended up in a hospital or even dead because their glucose was too low or too high. At the very least, they often had worse and delayed information that meant worse control of conditions like diabetes. By chance, are you Maurice Ronald?

Growing up our school had a few pay phones to call parents. My kid was fed food by a teacher they thought they should not eat and asked and teacher said it was fine. Kid asked to go to the nurse as they thought they were having a reaction and teacher said no because it was too close to pick up. When I picked my child up they were having a full on reaction and it was a long night at the ER getting it under control. So, yes, my kid has a watch to call me.

At my kid's ES, we don't have food at school parties, school birthday treats, or any outside food distributed to kids by teachers to avoid any issues with allergies etc. A HS kid should absolutely know not to accept food that causes an issue for a health condition rather than accepting to be "fed food" by a teacher. If your kid's food issue is so severe, many kids with allergies have 504s allowing for accommodations. No reason why your kid couldn't get a 504, rather than insisting that all kids use phones, just because your kid needs one due to their specific health condition.

The teacher bought the food and gave it to my child who expressed concern and she said they can eat it. In hs, we’ve had other emergencies. We had a 504 at the time. We dropped it as it was useless. You need to monitor your kid. If my kid abuses the phone or for other reasons we take it and lock it away. They have a watch to contact us. Try parenting.

You need to monitor an elementary school kid. By high school, anyone with a life-threatening allergy needs to be able to advocate and fend for themselves. Why should a kid that age be calling you on their cellphone to tell you they need to use an epi pen? By the time you were able to help them, it would be too late.

That’s great but not all kids of any age can advocate for themselves and I was to know asap. Don’t trust mcps.

Why don't you "try parenting" as you told people upthread? You're telling parents to monitor how kids use of an electronic device when they're not around their kids, and you aren't able to teach your kid to be careful when eating potential life threatening allergens.

[Anonymous]

Mcps will fire teachers if the kids are addicted to their cell phones. Well, they are addicted. Retaliation is a coming. Those kids are going to get a lot of teachers fired because teacher takes the punishment that should be filed out to the hundreds of kids that disregard all rules in mcps. Mcps and mcea hate teachers who follow the rules. Crime is what allows people to progress their career these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mcps will fire teachers if the kids are addicted to their cell phones. Well, they are addicted. Retaliation is a coming. Those kids are going to get a lot of teachers fired because teacher takes the punishment that should be filed out to the hundreds of kids that disregard all rules in mcps. Mcps and mcea hate teachers who follow the rules. Crime is what allows people to progress their career these days.

Well, that's a whole lot of gross generalization without evidence packed into a few sentences. I give it a B-, even by MCPS lax grading standards.

[Anonymous]

There is a lot of evidence if you look at how teachers fear retaliation in America and MCPS in particular. Also, the percentage of the population that is prescribed Adderall and other amphetamines, gets special IEP treatment that sets off fairness animosity and conflicts/ special treatment in classes, the inability to enforce rules, and the ubiquitous violence and chaos in schools. Yeah, teachers are shamed and blamed. Do your homework or bury your head in the sand- either way it's not going to fix the teacher shortage or violence epidemic unless we acknowledge that these truths exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Raise your kids to pay attention in class, people. Or sufficiently so that they get good grades. We're an ADHD family, and even my kid with severe ADHD was able to tear himself away from his phone, listen to his teachers and do the actual work. He graduated with a 4.67 weighted GPA and a dozen APs.

Public schools do a lot for students, but at some point you need to live with system-wide decisions you won't like. Pull yourself together and deal with it.

Your kid doesn’t have severe ADHD.

PP you replied to. You want to see his neuropsychological results? You are being extremely offensive and have no clue about the hard work we put in, as a family, and the hard work he put in, plus the judicious use of Adderall.

Shame on you. Don't you dare minimize other people's struggles just because they have pushed themselves to achieve.

Aren't you just minimizing others' struggles with your own post? Some kids struggle mightily with distractions. It's great your kid could overcome that but not all can do so well. We owe them a better chance to succeed.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Eh, I'm the parent of a MS and HS student and this this policy is sane and sensical.

My HS-aged kid having access to their phone at lunch is fine, actually. They can (and do) use it to help with homework, to read sports scores and share with friends, or to facilitate discussion at the meeting of a club.

I think the testimony above assumes the kids are using their phones to SnapChat or something and never look up, but they are actually using them to facilitate socialization, not to shut it down.

Your kid doesn't need a phone at lunch. If it's a true urgent issue, they can go back to their locker and send a message. It puts such a burden on school staff to police phones that are distracting kids from their education. Just make it simple and let the kids go through their school day without additional phone time.

Talk to me after your 5th lockdown with your kid hiding in a closet texting, “Mom I’m scared. I love you.” When MCPS communicates with the media but kids and teachers are still crying for hours with no information. When you have a lifeline to your kids and can tell them they are safe and there was no other way for them to know other than that cell phone, there is no way you’d let your kid be without it.
I’d happily do whatever it took to bypass a policy that took my kids phone away. I’d buy another phone, pay the fines and sue the school system.
Teach them how to handle phones properly and wake up to our reality - Republicans care about money from the NRA more than our kid’s lives.

Lady, you need to work on your resilience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did thes go into effect today or is it next school year?

Next school year but they are basically the rules that people at the pilot school have worked with all year. My kids are at WJ and I think it’s worked well. I got one email early on from a teacher saying my kid had failed to put their phone in the box during class, we discueed, and it didn’t happen again. My impression is that the teachers are happy with it and the kids feel it’s an acceptable compromise they can live with, as they can check their messages at lunch and use their phones to order lunch. I think if the rule was bell to bell the HS kids would likely just ignore it. But they seem like they can live with this.

Our Ms has a bell to bell policy and I think it’s ignored. I don’t think they’ve gotten buy in from the kids. I think MS is just difficult and I don’t have a real view on what is right for them. I feel like the McPS new rile is right for ES and HS though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a lot of evidence if you look at how teachers fear retaliation in America and MCPS in particular. Also, the percentage of the population that is prescribed Adderall and other amphetamines, gets special IEP treatment that sets off fairness animosity and conflicts/ special treatment in classes, the inability to enforce rules, and the ubiquitous violence and chaos in schools. Yeah, teachers are shamed and blamed. Do your homework or bury your head in the sand- either way it's not going to fix the teacher shortage or violence epidemic unless we acknowledge that these truths exist.

No one ever said minimizing cell phone use during the day would fix the teacher shortage or the violence in our schools. It will, most evidence shows, reduce distractions and get kids more focused on learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent of a T1 diabetic who uses her smart phone to monitor glucose, and she has it in her 504 plan that she can have her phone on her. It's important. BUT the diabetes rate in the juvenile population is like 0.002% - not even an average of 1 kid per MCPS high school. So, the BuT tHe KiDs wItH DiSaBiLitiEs!!! argument for why phones need to be allowed doesn't hold a ton of water.

There are far more disabilities and health issues and diabetics. If you are saying your kid should get one and only kids with diabetes, that is pretty disengenuous. There are many reasons why kids need to contact their parents. Parents need to try to manage these phones but MCPS needs to stop giving access to the wifi to kids outside devices as if you have them blocked on cellular, they just do it through the wifi.

The PP mentioned diabetics because someone used diabetics as the reason why all kids need phones. If your child has a documented medical condition or some other condition that necessitates cell phone usage during the day in excess of what is allowed by MCPS policy, that would be addressed in their IEP/504 etc. If your kid just "needs" to contact their parents during the day, you need to figure out how to get them focused on their schoolwork so they can manage without you for a few hours.

No. What happened is somebody said nobody needs a phone, regardless of 504 or IEP or medical Need—even diabetics, since kids didn’t have them 25 years ago and were fine then— Then we countered that with a specific legitimate use for a phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a lot of evidence if you look at how teachers fear retaliation in America and MCPS in particular. Also, the percentage of the population that is prescribed Adderall and other amphetamines, gets special IEP treatment that sets off fairness animosity and conflicts/ special treatment in classes, the inability to enforce rules, and the ubiquitous violence and chaos in schools. Yeah, teachers are shamed and blamed. Do your homework or bury your head in the sand- either way it's not going to fix the teacher shortage or violence epidemic unless we acknowledge that these truths exist.

No one ever said minimizing cell phone use during the day would fix the teacher shortage or the violence in our schools. It will, most evidence shows, reduce distractions and get kids more focused on learning.

Monitor your own kids. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

As a parent in stafford, I absolutely love no phones in the hall and at lunch. Encouraged more face to face communication and led to a cut down on the number and magnitude of fights. And of course it’s a no brainer in the classroom as it is only a distraction. If i need to get in touch with my child I email their school account or have the front office send him a note - like when I went to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent in stafford, I absolutely love no phones in the hall and at lunch. Encouraged more face to face communication and led to a cut down on the number and magnitude of fights. And of course it’s a no brainer in the classroom as it is only a distraction. If i need to get in touch with my child I email their school account or have the front office send him a note - like when I went to school.

Do they put the phones in their own lockers or does the school take them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a lot of evidence if you look at how teachers fear retaliation in America and MCPS in particular. Also, the percentage of the population that is prescribed Adderall and other amphetamines, gets special IEP treatment that sets off fairness animosity and conflicts/ special treatment in classes, the inability to enforce rules, and the ubiquitous violence and chaos in schools. Yeah, teachers are shamed and blamed. Do your homework or bury your head in the sand- either way it's not going to fix the teacher shortage or violence epidemic unless we acknowledge that these truths exist.

Most kids who have ieps need them. Many kids don’t have them and need them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent in stafford, I absolutely love no phones in the hall and at lunch. Encouraged more face to face communication and led to a cut down on the number and magnitude of fights. And of course it’s a no brainer in the classroom as it is only a distraction. If i need to get in touch with my child I email their school account or have the front office send him a note - like when I went to school.

We cannot email the child’s school account. In hs we have 2000+ kids. They cannot handle parents calling with notes or kids using the phones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent in stafford, I absolutely love no phones in the hall and at lunch. Encouraged more face to face communication and led to a cut down on the number and magnitude of fights. And of course it’s a no brainer in the classroom as it is only a distraction. If i need to get in touch with my child I email their school account or have the front office send him a note - like when I went to school.

That’s great to hear. Y’all are way ahead of MCPS.