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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.