Reply to Cell Phone Bans in Schools Around Country

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]School psychologist here. At the middle school I work at, the teachers do not touch students phones because they are liable if any damage to the phone. So they just tell the kid to put the phone away. The student either ignores them or puts it away for 2 minutes and then takes it back out and keeps doing what they were doing before. Teacher goes back to teaching the rest of the class (most of whom are on their phones too or looking at some website on the device that they are not supposed to.)

Also if I had a dollar for each fight/ bullying incident that I’ve seen being recorded by kids, I’d be rich.

After seeing all this go on for years I decided to put my kid in private school with strict cell phone rules. The students are required to leave their phones in their lockers all day. I also didn’t give my kid a phone until 8th grade. [/quote]

MCPS should put up camera's so parents can see what's going on.  [/quote]

I thought they did have cameras in all the classrooms already.  My kid's friend had something stolen out of her bag when she went to the bathroom.  They were able to catch the kid that did it immediately because she was caught on camera in the classroom going through the bag and taking something out.

I'm just really struggling to see an option that doesn't put more burden on teachers to enforce it.

I do think that one easy change is to make 100% clear that teachers/school are not responsible for any damage/loss to phones that are removed from a child because the child has them out during class.  I really don't see why they should be, and I think it's 100% ridiculous that schools are apparently telling this to teachers.

Requiring them to be in lockers seems to me not a functional solution....my HS kids don't have lockers (the schools don't have enough so they are only by special request).  And my MS kid's locker has been broken all year.  And my understanding is that stuff gets stolen out of the lockers a lot -- my MS kid's friend had her shoes stolen out of the gym locker during gym class.  The kids just shimmy the lockers open.

I think something like, if the teacher sees it once, it goes in a basket teacher keeps on desk until end of class -- if it's a repeat problem, teacher hands it over to admin and they can deal with the principal to get it back.  But of course the school needs to be willing to discipline any kid who refuses to put their phone in the basket.   I don't think you need an expensive lock bag -- you just need to the willingness to impose some discipline on the kids who give the teachers crap about the rule.  Right now the teachers don't enforce it because they know admin doesn't have their back on this.[/quote]

I understand what you're saying, but the phones are direct tools used in serious safety and security incidents. Like coordinating fights or facilitating the bullying that leads to fights. They are not as innocuous as you're painting them out to be. They are a direct contributor to the safety problems.[/quote]

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