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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m an educator, and I can assure you that the phones issue gets debated a lot on social media fora for teachers. Here are the most common responses to parent concerns:

What about school shootings?
Most teachers and admin don’t care if your child has a phone in a backpack or a storage pouch/container in the back of the classroom. We don’t want to see the phone out during instruction.

What about other emergencies?
If you have a change in pick-up plans, call the office. They probably need to know about it anyway. If your child has an emergency, teachers, nurses, and admin will all allow use of the school landlines. If there is a medical emergency at home, death of a family member, etc., don’t call or text your child in class. If it’s that serious, an adult should tactfully pull the child from class, and a family member should pick the student up from school. If your kid forgets a project, instrument, sports uniform, etc., that’s not an emergency. Natural consequences from poor planning are the way children learn.

A school can’t confiscate personal property!
First of all, schools are not permanently depriving your family of an electronic device, so it’s not confiscation. Second, schools that have rules banning phones during the day will send out behavior contracts to that effect. If you want to avoid a consequence, that’s easily achieved by your child keeping the phone out of sight and following the other provisions of the contract.

Schools will tell you all the time that they are not responsible for what your child brings to campus. If something is too precious to lose, it doesn’t belong at school, whether that’s a favorite toy, jewelry, cash, or electronics. 
[b]
The fear of parental backlash over “confiscation” has, indeed, prevented many schools from regulating phones well. Unfortunately, the consequences of student phone use in class are myriad.[/b]

What works for your one well-behaved child at home doesn’t always work well in a group setting of 25-40 students. [/quote]

I am sorry more parents do not understand that their very own addiction of their phone and needing to track and talk to their kid 24/7 has ruined education for everyone.

I know how to put downtime on my kid's phone from 8am to 3pm that they can only use apps like calculator, weather, student view, and for messages there is 5 contacts ONLY.  They can not use other apps or text/FT anyone else but parents/siblings.  There is no work around unless they know the code.   But it is WAY too hard for most parents to figure out or care.

There should be a mandatory parent code on all minor's phones and school downtime button M-F 8am to 3pm.  Allow basics and 3-5 contacts only. [/quote]

As usual, it comes down to parenting. My kids phone is in school mode during school hours. Nevertheless, I want my kid to have access to their phone for a variety of reasons and would justifiably be annoyed if the county tried to unlawfully seize my property?.[/quote]

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