Anonymous wrote:I fully support the new law banning cell phones at school, including during lunch and including for high school students.

The research is becoming overwhelmingly clear: excessive technology use — especially smartphones, social media, and unrestricted internet access — is harming children’s cognitive development, attention spans, mental health, social skills, and relationships.

Lunch should be a time for face-to-face conversation, friendship, problem-solving, and social development. When students spend lunch scrolling on phones, they are missing critical opportunities to develop real-world communication and interpersonal skills.

Cell phones at school are also frequently used inappropriately to coordinate fights, bullying, vaping, cheating, and other unsafe behaviors. Cyberbullying does not stop during the school day when students have unrestricted access to devices and social media.

There is a growing international movement calling for more intentional and limited technology use for children and teens. Many experts are now advocating for:
• Phone-free schools
• Reduced unnecessary screen use in academics
• More paper-and-pencil learning
• Better protections and safeguards for internet access and school platforms
• Stronger boundaries around AI use for children and teens

Research is also raising serious concerns about unrestricted AI chatbot access for minors. Some AI chatbots have reportedly encouraged suicidal ideation, self-harm, eating disorders, and other dangerous behaviors in vulnerable youth.

Protect children and teens. Their brains, attention, relationships, and emotional health matter more than constant digital access.

Some researchers/authors to follow and read:
• Jonathan Haidt — author of The Anxious Generation
• Fairplay
• Wait Until 8th
• “The Digital Delusion”book
• “Scrolling to Death”
• Ongoing lawsuits against Meta and other tech companies alleging intentional addictive design targeting children and teens
*Tristan Harris- AI ethicist

Anonymous wrote:I fully support the new law banning cell phones at school, including during lunch and including for high school students.

The research is becoming overwhelmingly clear: excessive technology use — especially smartphones, social media, and unrestricted internet access — is harming children’s cognitive development, attention spans, mental health, social skills, and relationships.

Lunch should be a time for face-to-face conversation, friendship, problem-solving, and social development. When students spend lunch scrolling on phones, they are missing critical opportunities to develop real-world communication and interpersonal skills.

Cell phones at school are also frequently used inappropriately to coordinate fights, bullying, vaping, cheating, and other unsafe behaviors. Cyberbullying does not stop during the school day when students have unrestricted access to devices and social media.

There is a growing international movement calling for more intentional and limited technology use for children and teens. Many experts are now advocating for:
• Phone-free schools
• Reduced unnecessary screen use in academics
• More paper-and-pencil learning
• Better protections and safeguards for internet access and school platforms
• Stronger boundaries around AI use for children and teens

Research is also raising serious concerns about unrestricted AI chatbot access for minors. Some AI chatbots have reportedly encouraged suicidal ideation, self-harm, eating disorders, and other dangerous behaviors in vulnerable youth.

Protect children and teens. Their brains, attention, relationships, and emotional health matter more than constant digital access.

Some researchers/authors to follow and read:
• Jonathan Haidt — author of The Anxious Generation
• Fairplay
• Wait Until 8th
• “The Digital Delusion”book
• “Scrolling to Death”
• Ongoing lawsuits against Meta and other tech companies alle
ging intentional addictive design targeting children and teens
*Tristan Harris- AI ethicist

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel bad for the kids who sit alone and have no friends in their lunch period. They are the ones who now have to sit there looking around at other kids in groups.

And how exactly would staring at their phone during lunch develop their social skills? Maybe now they will look at a neighbor who is also sitting alone and figure out how to connect, develop their social skills, and improve their mental health. Screens are what got some kids into a pit of loneliness.

I applaud the district/state for trying to improve learning and connection, though I will miss being able to communicate a change in plans to my kid. Hope the main office is ready for the barrage of phone calls coming in to “please contact my kid about…”. And will they have a landline the kids can use to call home if needed? They can’t just cut parents off.

Every classroom and office has a landline in every school.

Kids will still turn their phones on immediately at the dismissal bell and see anything you’ve texted mid day, but schools also have always had procedures in place to contact kids in an urgent situation. I suspect once it is a smidgen of effort to contact kids, a lot of what seemed urgent to many of the parents will be able to wait until 3 pm.

It’s worked fine in middle schools where phones were completely restricted this year, it will work fine in high school too.

I'm a parent of a kid in another county with a ban. No the kids are not allowed to use the office phone or the classroom phones. If a parent calls the office with a message for your kid, they office policy is to EMAIL the kid. Which they will not get since they can't have their phones. It's a mess.

Clearly if there was a real emergency they would get ahold of your kid more quickly.

I applaud the school for emailing dumb sht like, “dad is going to pick you up instead of mom” or “don’t forget to walk the dog when you get home”. It can wait until 3:00 without issue.

Email can be accessed from laptops at lunch, texts can be read at 3:01.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why I’m glad I graduated when I did, because FCPS is run by the stupidest effing people.

Students should have time to look at their phones to see if their is any responsibilities for them to fulfill.

Maybe students should be issued a “work” phone that they can use to communicate with their parents.

It’s a state law, not an FCPS rule without the VA requirement. Why would the criticism be placed against FCPS?

So what happens if they just say,...
No thanks?

I mean they’ve done that in the past. FCPS didn’t follow the guidance to open schools during Covid. They also got into a lawsuit of genders and bathrooms I believe.

In either of those situations, was there a law they were violating?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to believe this thread has been discovered by teens. Surely there aren't parents actively helping their kid find ways to skirt policies that are enforced for the greater good of all students?

I hope the punishments next year for phone use become "phone is held for 2 weeks at school" or "parent must come check the phone into the office daily" or something so ridiculously disruptive to the parents' lives that they are encouraged to actually parent their child's phone use.

I wouldn't worry about that! When the line to collect the phones becomes another 20+ minutes to the school day, that will be a natural consequence of kids taking their phones out at lunch. Miss the bus, walk home, or call your parents to get you. Sooner or later, it'll start to be a greater problem for the kid/family. So let them do what they want. Let the parents provide burner phones if they want. They'll need to buy a good supply of those burner phones otherwise the natural consequence will still become an issue for them.

Heck, hopefully the administration at these schools are looking at this thread and can implement a delayed return policy for the phone (same day, 20 minutes after school has been dismissed) and let the chips fall where they may. Guarantee this is a problem which will then self-correct instantaneously, within the first two weeks of school.

That. Is. Brilliant.

+10000

Thank you to the poster! At our HS, the PTA is engaging with the Administration about best way to implement the new policy. I'm most definitely bringing this to their attention.

If you actually think anyone is going to wait 20 minutes after school to return phones you are more delusional than I thought. lol! Go ahead and introduce this idea. They are going to nod and say we will think about it and then laugh behind your back at the absurdity of it. You parents are so dumb! As if any teacher or Gatehouse listens to your dumb ideas!!!! Thanks for the laugh.

Why wouldn’t they? All staff has to stay after school anyway. It’s in our contract hours.

At my school, as soon as I see a phone, I email the security team and write the referral for the device. Someone comes and picks it up within a few minutes, and it is held in the office until the end of the day. If the kid refuses to give me the phone, they go with security to speak to the administrator with a referral for insubordination.


The second time, they don’t get the device back until they’ve served their detention. The third time, they don’t get it back until the parent comes in to collect the device, has a meeting with admin, and the student serves a day of ISS.

It works. I still write one or two referrals a week, but at the beginning of the school year I was writing one or two per day.

I fully admit one of the administrators is a slacker and rarely follows up, but the other 3 are awesome and consequences are assigned every time.

This isn’t going to happen for lunch infractions. Sorry. It’s just too ridiculous.

Agreed. Class time phone usage - sure. But the idea that teachers, already overworked, underpaid, and with not enough time to do their actual job, are going to spend periods policing student breaks and writing them up is really sort of an insult to teachers. They have subject specific knowledge to teach - they aren't mall cop style babysitters.

Thankfully our high school didn’t treat kids like kindergartners this year. Lunch time phone use was ok even with the state law. I suspect they will be lenient again next year. I’m not too worried.

the law just changed, that's why FCPS had to ban phones at lunch. which i think is dumb, but that is the law now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel bad for the kids who sit alone and have no friends in their lunch period. They are the ones who now have to sit there looking around at other kids in groups.

And how exactly would staring at their phone during lunch develop their social skills? Maybe now they will look at a neighbor who is also sitting alone and figure out how to connect, develop their social skills, and improve their mental health. Screens are what got some kids into a pit of loneliness.

I applaud the district/state for trying to improve learning and connection, though I will miss being able to communicate a change in plans to my kid. Hope the main office is ready for the barrage of phone calls coming in to “please contact my kid about…”. And will they have a landline the kids can use to call home if needed? They can’t just cut parents off.

Every classroom and office has a landline in every school.

Kids will still turn their phones on immediately at the dismissal bell and see anything you’ve texted mid day, but schools also have always had procedures in place to contact kids in an urgent situation. I suspect once it is a smidgen of effort to contact kids, a lot of what seemed urgent to many of the parents will be able to wait until 3 pm.

It’s worked fine in middle schools where phones were completely restricted this year, it will work fine in high school too.

I'm a parent of a kid in another county with a ban. No the kids are not allowed to use the office phone or the classroom phones. If a parent calls the office with a message for your kid, they office policy is to EMAIL the kid. Which they will not get since they can't have their phones. It's a mess.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is so important during the day that they need their phones. Kids went without phones at school for decades. We all survived.

You must not have high school students. I would have said the same thing a few years ago, but my kids check their phones at the lunch break because their coaches text and message through apps during the day to tell them about practice, bus times for games, changes for weather, changes because of field scheduling issues, etc.
I personally have texted high school babysitters during the day to tell them of changes for the afternoon/evening. Communication has changed dramatically since the 1990s, and expectations of being able to get in touch have as well - for better or worse.

I agree that I don't want my teens on their phones all day and I think it's 100% appropriate to have the phones away during classes, but they should be able to check in during lunch. That's just how the world communicates now.

I guess coaches, bosses, etc. are going to have to get used to this and communicate differently as well.

Other clubs communicate during day through instagram and texting appa that are blocked/not available to access on laptops. A good change would be for HS to not push instagram as communication tool but ridiculous to say no phones when that’s how majority of clubs and activities are communicating in HS.

Coaches could just use email. The kids access school email from laptops. Problem solved. Coaches should never have been using social media and message apps to communicate with students anyway.

They don’t have time to check email on their bulky laptop during lunch. What a stupid idea. They should be allowed to check their phone for texts or email at lunch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel bad for the kids who sit alone and have no friends in their lunch period. They are the ones who now have to sit there looking around at other kids in groups.

And how exactly would staring at their phone during lunch develop their social skills? Maybe now they will look at a neighbor who is also sitting alone and figure out how to connect, develop their social skills, and improve their mental health. Screens are what got some kids into a pit of loneliness.

I applaud the district/state for trying to improve learning and connection, though I will miss being able to communicate a change in plans to my kid. Hope the main office is ready for the barrage of phone calls coming in to “please contact my kid about…”. And will they have a landline the kids can use to call home if needed? They can’t just cut parents off.

Every classroom and office has a landline in every school.

Kids will still turn their phones on immediately at the dismissal bell and see anything you’ve texted mid day, but schools also have always had procedures in place to contact kids in an urgent situation. I suspect once it is a smidgen of effort to contact kids, a lot of what seemed urgent to many of the parents will be able to wait until 3 pm.

It’s worked fine in middle schools where phones were completely restricted this year, it will work fine in high school too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to believe this thread has been discovered by teens. Surely there aren't parents actively helping their kid find ways to skirt policies that are enforced for the greater good of all students?

I hope the punishments next year for phone use become "phone is held for 2 weeks at school" or "parent must come check the phone into the office daily" or something so ridiculously disruptive to the parents' lives that they are encouraged to actually parent their child's phone use.

I wouldn't worry about that! When the line to collect the phones becomes another 20+ minutes to the school day, that will be a natural consequence of kids taking their phones out at lunch. Miss the bus, walk home, or call your parents to get you. Sooner or later, it'll start to be a greater problem for the kid/family. So let them do what they want. Let the parents provide burner phones if they want. They'll need to buy a good supply of those burner phones otherwise the natural consequence will still become an issue for them.

Heck, hopefully the administration at these schools are looking at this thread and can implement a delayed return policy for the phone (same day, 20 minutes after school has been dismissed) and let the chips fall where they may. Guarantee this is a problem which will then self-correct instantaneously, within the first two weeks of school.

That. Is. Brilliant.

+10000

Thank you to the poster! At our HS, the PTA is engaging with the Administration about best way to implement the new policy. I'm most definitely bringing this to their attention.

If you actually think anyone is going to wait 20 minutes after school to return phones you are more delusional than I thought. lol! Go ahead and introduce this idea. They are going to nod and say we will think about it and then laugh behind your back at the absurdity of it. You parents are so dumb! As if any teacher or Gatehouse listens to your dumb ideas!!!! Thanks for the laugh.

Why wouldn’t they? All staff has to stay after school anyway. It’s in our contract hours.

At my school, as soon as I see a phone, I email the security team and write the referral for the device. Someone comes and picks it up within a few minutes, and it is held in the office until the end of the day. If the kid refuses to give me the phone, they go with security to speak to the administrator with a referral for insubordination.


The second time, they don’t get the device back until they’ve served their detention. The third time, they don’t get it back until the parent comes in to collect the device, has a meeting with admin, and the student serves a day of ISS.

It works. I still write one or two referrals a week, but at the beginning of the school year I was writing one or two per day.

I fully admit one of the administrators is a slacker and rarely follows up, but the other 3 are awesome and consequences are assigned every time.

This isn’t going to happen for lunch infractions. Sorry. It’s just too ridiculous.

Agreed. Class time phone usage - sure. But the idea that teachers, already overworked, underpaid, and with not enough time to do their actual job, are going to spend periods policing student breaks and writing them up is really sort of an insult to teachers. They have subject specific knowledge to teach - they aren't mall cop style babysitters.

Thankfully our high school didn’t treat kids like kindergartners this year. Lunch time phone use was ok even with the state law. I suspect they will be lenient again next year. I’m not too worried.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or it can come up in the recommendation letters much more easily... "Solid student with problematic cell phone usage...."

I get you’re trolling but to even make joke at all…

But you see, that's the beauty of breaking the rules. You ask for the recommendation, it's absolutely within the teacher's right to point out the most obvious issue. You don't want to be exposed to that, then don't break the rules. Very simple ask.

The ask would be for a recommendation from a teacher who isn't miserable and malicious and wants to see their student succeed.

Try teaching for 20+ years putting up with nonsense students and even worse parents. "Miserable and malicious" takes on a whole new meaning. Look at it as a way to finally even the score. Didn't used to matter as much before, but now, god help the kid that doesn't get a glowing recommendation. Best part about it ... you'll never know until it's too late!

All this anger over kids using phones at lunch??

Anonymous wrote:What is so important during the day that they need their phones. Kids went without phones at school for decades. We all survived.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or it can come up in the recommendation letters much more easily... "Solid student with problematic cell phone usage...."

I get you’re trolling but to even make joke at all…

But you see, that's the beauty of breaking the rules. You ask for the recommendation, it's absolutely within the teacher's right to point out the most obvious issue. You don't want to be exposed to that, then don't break the rules. Very simple ask.

The ask would be for a recommendation from a teacher who isn't miserable and malicious and wants to see their student succeed.

Good luck figuring out the teachers! Teachers talk, especially about the problematic students.

This is exactly the sort of thing colleges want to know and teachers are ethically needed to tell. A rule breaking student backed by a parent who is supportive of such behavior, need to be flagged.

You are crazy if you think I’m going to mention cell phone usage in college recommendations. Some of you have really lost your minds. - HS teacher

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or it can come up in the recommendation letters much more easily... "Solid student with problematic cell phone usage...."

I get you’re trolling but to even make joke at all…

But you see, that's the beauty of breaking the rules. You ask for the recommendation, it's absolutely within the teacher's right to point out the most obvious issue. You don't want to be exposed to that, then don't break the rules. Very simple ask.

The ask would be for a recommendation from a teacher who isn't miserable and malicious and wants to see their student succeed.

Good luck figuring out the teachers! Teachers talk, especially about the problematic students.

This is exactly the sort of thing colleges want to know and teachers are ethically needed to tell. A rule breaking student backed by a parent who is supportive of such behavior, need to be flagged.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why I’m glad I graduated when I did, because FCPS is run by the stupidest effing people.

Students should have time to look at their phones to see if their is any responsibilities for them to fulfill.

Maybe students should be issued a “work” phone that they can use to communicate with their parents.

It’s a state law, not an FCPS rule without the VA requirement. Why would the criticism be placed against FCPS?

So what happens if they just say,...
No thanks?

I mean they’ve done that in the past. FCPS didn’t follow the guidance to open schools during Covid. They also got into a lawsuit of genders and bathrooms I believe.