MCPS and Yondr pouches

[Anonymous]

One can send kids to MCPS but not work in MCPS, but either way, it's an open forum. If you want an echo chamber, go somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is why I will never teach in MCPS again. Teachers are caught in the middle of parents who can’t stand the discomfort of not being able to reach their child at any time and administrators who don’t/can’t/won’t enforce the cell phone policy because there’s too much else going on. If teachers spend their whole time confiscating phones, they’re not teaching anyone. Meanwhile, while some parents say, “just take the phone,” the other half is saying, “you can’t confiscate my kids’ belongings, what is this, a police state?”
Hear me out. What if….parents and teachers worked together to ensure kids could learn in school. The kids will be fine without phones during the school day. Many students would be the first to admit it’s a distraction they can’t resist and that they need help setting it aside to concentrate. Those things are addictive and no one wants to miss out on anything happening in their friend group. If no one has one, problem solved. For what it’s worth, many, many of the tech industry leaders delay or won’t give their kids phones because they know how harmful they are. They send their kids to schools with no phone policies on purpose.
Separate out the issues. When we combine something like cell phones with the culture wars then you muddy the waters. You can be on either side of the restorative justice or gun or racial equity debates and still want cell phones out of the schools so your kids can learn.

I agree with you.

If MCPS wants to really address the achievement gap, they need to remove distractions as much as possible, and we all know that today, smartphones are the #1 distraction for teens.

-op

[Anonymous]

Only communists would want to confiscate personal property like this. It's just so unamerican.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is why I will never teach in MCPS again. Teachers are caught in the middle of parents who can’t stand the discomfort of not being able to reach their child at any time and administrators who don’t/can’t/won’t enforce the cell phone policy because there’s too much else going on. If teachers spend their whole time confiscating phones, they’re not teaching anyone. Meanwhile, while some parents say, “just take the phone,” the other half is saying, “you can’t confiscate my kids’ belongings, what is this, a police state?”
Hear me out. What if….parents and teachers worked together to ensure kids could learn in school. The kids will be fine without phones during the school day. Many students would be the first to admit it’s a distraction they can’t resist and that they need help setting it aside to concentrate. Those things are addictive and no one wants to miss out on anything happening in their friend group. If no one has one, problem solved. For what it’s worth, many, many of the tech industry leaders delay or won’t give their kids phones because they know how harmful they are. They send their kids to schools with no phone policies on purpose.
Separate out the issues. When we combine something like cell phones with the culture wars then you muddy the waters. You can be on either side of the restorative justice or gun or racial equity debates and still want cell phones out of the schools so your kids can learn.

You can't judge mcps parents by the sock puppeting posters on here. My kids Spanish teacher makes them deposit their phones at the beginning of class and pick them back up on their way out. She's my hero. I wish our principal has the balls to just take them first thing in the am because while I do want DC to have a phone on the walk back and forth to school I do not want dc to have a phone at school and all of my friends and neighbors feel the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most teachers are surprisingly lax about it but occasionally there will be the one teacher who will send kids to the principal's office for 10 seconds of phone use.

They should just allow them before and after class and at the discretion of individual teachers during class during downtime if there is any.

Teachers are lax because it's not worth the headache of enforcing and unenforceable policy. That one teacher that does enforce it, will have to fill out multiple pieces of paperwork only to have nothing happen to the student and they are right back using their phone in class the next day. The only way to fix this is through a black and white policy. NO CELL PHONES IN SCHOOL. Anything else that creates grey area doesn't work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a parent at a DCPS school that uses pouches (although we don’t use Yondr). It’s made such a positive difference in so many ways, I can’t recommend it enough. Also, a vast majority of the parents are thrilled about it. Both kids AND adults have a major cell phone addiction problem and kids don’t have the same developed brains that adults do- they need parameters and guidance! The process of collecting the phones and giving them back is seamless. The kids don’t complain about it either.

The kids won't complain if EVERYONE has to do it and complies. But the minute one teacher or admin folds, it's a wrap. And this is the problem I see in MCPS.

We can't get the majority of parents or teachers or principals on board with taking a firm stance on this. Principals fold to the noisy parents who yelp about needing to reach their kids and weak-willed teachers who are afraid of being adversarial with students or who value being seen as friendly to their students than being an authority acquiesce to the phone-addicted kids who insist they can simultaneously use the devices and successfully learn, even though the adults in the room know this isn't true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most teachers are surprisingly lax about it but occasionally there will be the one teacher who will send kids to the principal's office for 10 seconds of phone use.

They should just allow them before and after class and at the discretion of individual teachers during class during downtime if there is any.

Teachers are lax because it's not worth the headache of enforcing and unenforceable policy. That one teacher that does enforce it, will have to fill out multiple pieces of paperwork only to have nothing happen to the student and they are right back using their phone in class the next day. The only way to fix this is through a black and white policy. NO CELL PHONES IN SCHOOL. Anything else that creates grey area doesn't work.

You also have to hold the other "fun" teachers who encourage kids to use phones in their classroom as a way of currying favor and approval from their students as part of the problem as well.

I had several blowout fights with my DS about this as I told him he needed to not use the phones in class, but he would balk because several teachers insisted and told him it was ok to do so. And then the one teacher who didn't get on board with that was seen as "mean."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only communists would want to confiscate personal property like this. It's just so unamerican.

LOL! Students agree to the code of conduct. That's not how communism was explained to me!