Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fully support a no phone policy and ask that schools enforce it. Up to them how to do it but there is no place for them during the school day, at all. I don’t want to hear the whining from admins. If the pouch makes them stop whining, fine.

Aren’t the admins now going to be tasked as the messengers going between kids and parents that can’t communicate directly? Strikes me as a lot more work for admins than before.

Most messages do not really need communicated mid day. Plan ahead.

Interesting how the talking points evolve. First, it was don’t worry about communicating with your kid because you can just communicate through the front office. So, now it is, actually what you have to say to your kid or your kid has to say to you is not all that important in our view so no need to communicate at all.

No, I think the point was important messages can be communicated through the front office but there are only so many important messages. How often are you contacting your kid during the school day??

DS is in HS with the phone pockets in each class but when he was in MS, there was an "away for the day" rule. I never had to communicate anything to him the entire two years. One time he asked a teacher if he could use his phone to text me -- he was excited to have received the highest grade in the class on a test. The teacher said it was fine (and also messaged me through Talking Points to tell me a) he allowed the phone usage and b) to tell me how impressed he was with my kid's performance in his class.

DD is at a Yondr school and she thinks this is no big deal.

Your example is exactly why "away for the day" is better than Yondr. The teacher recognized that an exception was warranted; a pouch can't do that. I agree that most during-the-school-day communication is not urgent, but why is that the standard? We are we throwing supportive parent-child communication in with the basket of evils. It is a good thing to have a line of communication with your kid because there are non-urgent things (like sharing excitement over a test) that are important. Yes, they can wait, but no one has explained why they should. If the evils we're combatting are distraction and phone addiction, stopping normal, healthy communication doesn't advance the ball. It is just a side effect. Why tolerate negative side effects when there is a cheaper alternative without them? If we now have to prove there is an emergency to be allowed to talk to our kids, there should be a good reason, and there isn't.

Good lord, land that helicopter.

You are confused. A helicopter parent is one who is heavily engaged in engineering a child's life. Keeping in touch with a kid is normal, healthy parenting.

When it happens before/after school. It does not need to happen during. Let your kid have some space.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fully support a no phone policy and ask that schools enforce it. Up to them how to do it but there is no place for them during the school day, at all. I don’t want to hear the whining from admins. If the pouch makes them stop whining, fine.

Aren’t the admins now going to be tasked as the messengers going between kids and parents that can’t communicate directly? Strikes me as a lot more work for admins than before.

Most messages do not really need communicated mid day. Plan ahead.

Interesting how the talking points evolve. First, it was don’t worry about communicating with your kid because you can just communicate through the front office. So, now it is, actually what you have to say to your kid or your kid has to say to you is not all that important in our view so no need to communicate at all.

No, I think the point was important messages can be communicated through the front office but there are only so many important messages. How often are you contacting your kid during the school day??

DS is in HS with the phone pockets in each class but when he was in MS, there was an "away for the day" rule. I never had to communicate anything to him the entire two years. One time he asked a teacher if he could use his phone to text me -- he was excited to have received the highest grade in the class on a test. The teacher said it was fine (and also messaged me through Talking Points to tell me a) he allowed the phone usage and b) to tell me how impressed he was with my kid's performance in his class.

DD is at a Yondr school and she thinks this is no big deal.

Your example is exactly why "away for the day" is better than Yondr. The teacher recognized that an exception was warranted; a pouch can't do that. I agree that most during-the-school-day communication is not urgent, but why is that the standard? We are we throwing supportive parent-child communication in with the basket of evils. It is a good thing to have a line of communication with your kid because there are non-urgent things (like sharing excitement over a test) that are important. Yes, they can wait, but no one has explained why they should. If the evils we're combatting are distraction and phone addiction, stopping normal, healthy communication doesn't advance the ball. It is just a side effect. Why tolerate negative side effects when there is a cheaper alternative without them? If we now have to prove there is an emergency to be allowed to talk to our kids, there should be a good reason, and there isn't.

Good lord, land that helicopter.

You are confused. A helicopter parent is one who is heavily engaged in engineering a child's life. Keeping in touch with a kid is normal, healthy parenting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fully support a no phone policy and ask that schools enforce it. Up to them how to do it but there is no place for them during the school day, at all. I don’t want to hear the whining from admins. If the pouch makes them stop whining, fine.

Aren’t the admins now going to be tasked as the messengers going between kids and parents that can’t communicate directly? Strikes me as a lot more work for admins than before.

Most messages do not really need communicated mid day. Plan ahead.

Interesting how the talking points evolve. First, it was don’t worry about communicating with your kid because you can just communicate through the front office. So, now it is, actually what you have to say to your kid or your kid has to say to you is not all that important in our view so no need to communicate at all.

No, I think the point was important messages can be communicated through the front office but there are only so many important messages. How often are you contacting your kid during the school day??

DS is in HS with the phone pockets in each class but when he was in MS, there was an "away for the day" rule. I never had to communicate anything to him the entire two years. One time he asked a teacher if he could use his phone to text me -- he was excited to have received the highest grade in the class on a test. The teacher said it was fine (and also messaged me through Talking Points to tell me a) he allowed the phone usage and b) to tell me how impressed he was with my kid's performance in his class.

DD is at a Yondr school and she thinks this is no big deal.

Your example is exactly why "away for the day" is better than Yondr. The teacher recognized that an exception was warranted; a pouch can't do that. I agree that most during-the-school-day communication is not urgent, but why is that the standard? We are we throwing supportive parent-child communication in with the basket of evils. It is a good thing to have a line of communication with your kid because there are non-urgent things (like sharing excitement over a test) that are important. Yes, they can wait, but no one has explained why they should. If the evils we're combatting are distraction and phone addiction, stopping normal, healthy communication doesn't advance the ball. It is just a side effect. Why tolerate negative side effects when there is a cheaper alternative without them? If we now have to prove there is an emergency to be allowed to talk to our kids, there should be a good reason, and there isn't.

Good lord, land that helicopter.

So grateful our HS is not a pilot HS. Business as usual and my kids are doing just fine.

Our middle school doesn’t have pouches. Teachers enforce and it’s working, so far. Would be even more helpful if parents tried to actually use the technology they have to restrict their kids’ phone use during school. The cost of pouches for every middle and high school is probably significant, could pay for more teachers instead.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fully support a no phone policy and ask that schools enforce it. Up to them how to do it but there is no place for them during the school day, at all. I don’t want to hear the whining from admins. If the pouch makes them stop whining, fine.

Aren’t the admins now going to be tasked as the messengers going between kids and parents that can’t communicate directly? Strikes me as a lot more work for admins than before.

Most messages do not really need communicated mid day. Plan ahead.

Interesting how the talking points evolve. First, it was don’t worry about communicating with your kid because you can just communicate through the front office. So, now it is, actually what you have to say to your kid or your kid has to say to you is not all that important in our view so no need to communicate at all.

No, I think the point was important messages can be communicated through the front office but there are only so many important messages. How often are you contacting your kid during the school day??

DS is in HS with the phone pockets in each class but when he was in MS, there was an "away for the day" rule. I never had to communicate anything to him the entire two years. One time he asked a teacher if he could use his phone to text me -- he was excited to have received the highest grade in the class on a test. The teacher said it was fine (and also messaged me through Talking Points to tell me a) he allowed the phone usage and b) to tell me how impressed he was with my kid's performance in his class.

DD is at a Yondr school and she thinks this is no big deal.

Your example is exactly why "away for the day" is better than Yondr. The teacher recognized that an exception was warranted; a pouch can't do that. I agree that most during-the-school-day communication is not urgent, but why is that the standard? We are we throwing supportive parent-child communication in with the basket of evils. It is a good thing to have a line of communication with your kid because there are non-urgent things (like sharing excitement over a test) that are important. Yes, they can wait, but no one has explained why they should. If the evils we're combatting are distraction and phone addiction, stopping normal, healthy communication doesn't advance the ball. It is just a side effect. Why tolerate negative side effects when there is a cheaper alternative without them? If we now have to prove there is an emergency to be allowed to talk to our kids, there should be a good reason, and there isn't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You assume that all parents are middle class and well educated and care about what happens during the school day. They are not and do not.

I find it entertaining that you think it's only poorer, less educated parents who aren't locking down phones. I've seen plenty of UMC entitlement here making it clear they want their own kids to have phone access.

I find it entertaining that you completely missed my point. I didn't say anything about locking down a phone. I was talking about the outreach aspect of things. A lot of parents just don't have the time or bandwidth or maybe even ability to read the emails sent out three times a week.

Okay, then please explain how this outreach to the poor and uneducated families should work.

Report from the ground:

The Yondr pouch pilot at our school is going well. The kids have discovered the pouch can be opened with a strategic strike from a particular angle, and that no one checks on whether the right phone, a piece of cardboard, or air has been placed in the pouch. My phoneless 12-year-old left his pouch at home, having been placed on the honor system. Several of the pouches have already been broken.

While there have been some glitches, the students report they have abandoned social media because playing with the pouch is much more fun, student entrepreneurs are happier because the burner phone business is booming, the kids who normally spend their time answering for hallway infractions are happy because the administrators are too smugly thrilled with the success of the pouches to notice what students are doing, and student interaction is up because they are united around the common goal of understanding the physical properties of the pouches. Of course, this is the honeymoon period and there will probably be some return to the less exciting old days of “Away for the Day” but for now, the student population is grateful to the school system for having the foresight to choose to spend its money on a little personal escape room for each student. A less prescient system might have paid for an additional bus, or something silly like that.

In other news, all Yondr employees were just granted a new batch of stock options. With just a few more prescient school systems like ours buying into the Yondr pouch program, the options should reach a value sufficient to ensure that no Yondr employee child need attend a public school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You must not have a kid who is constantly working around parental controls....I don't either but I know kids who do.

When is the last time you tried to hack around the controls? I have tried. “Downtime” is pretty effective.

Not on an Android phone...

Great, most people don’t have those. The point is that there are tools that some parents can use to help the school system enforce the no phone policy. Maybe try socializing those and educating parents before spending more money on this.

Actually most people do have those. Android phones have over 70% of the market, sweetie pie.

iPhone users still significantly outnumber android users, in the U.S.

Where did you get that number?

Also, 87% of teens in the U.S. have an iPhone.

That's actually great b/c it means you can buy your kid an Apple Watch that they can use in the case of an emergency while their iPhone is in their pouch.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You assume that all parents are middle class and well educated and care about what happens during the school day. They are not and do not.

I find it entertaining that you think it's only poorer, less educated parents who aren't locking down phones. I've seen plenty of UMC entitlement here making it clear they want their own kids to have phone access.

I find it entertaining that you completely missed my point. I didn't say anything about locking down a phone. I was talking about the outreach aspect of things. A lot of parents just don't have the time or bandwidth or maybe even ability to read the emails sent out three times a week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You assume that all parents are middle class and well educated and care about what happens during the school day. They are not and do not.

I find it entertaining that you think it's only poorer, less educated parents who aren't locking down phones. I've seen plenty of UMC entitlement here making it clear they want their own kids to have phone access.

I find it entertaining that you completely missed my point. I didn't say anything about locking down a phone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You must not have a kid who is constantly working around parental controls....I don't either but I know kids who do.

When is the last time you tried to hack around the controls? I have tried. “Downtime” is pretty effective.

Not on an Android phone...

Great, most people don’t have those. The point is that there are tools that some parents can use to help the school system enforce the no phone policy. Maybe try socializing those and educating parents before spending more money on this.

Actually most people do have those. Android phones have over 70% of the market, sweetie pie.

iPhone users still significantly outnumber android users, in the U.S.

Where did you get that number?

Also, 87% of teens in the U.S. have an iPhone.

That's actually great b/c it means you can buy your kid an Apple Watch that they can use in the case of an emergency while their iPhone is in their pouch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You must not have a kid who is constantly working around parental controls....I don't either but I know kids who do.

When is the last time you tried to hack around the controls? I have tried. “Downtime” is pretty effective.

Not on an Android phone...

Great, most people don’t have those. The point is that there are tools that some parents can use to help the school system enforce the no phone policy. Maybe try socializing those and educating parents before spending more money on this.

Actually most people do have those. Android phones have over 70% of the market, sweetie pie.

iPhone users still significantly outnumber android users, in the U.S.

Where did you get that number?

Also, 87% of teens in the U.S. have an iPhone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You must not have a kid who is constantly working around parental controls....I don't either but I know kids who do.

When is the last time you tried to hack around the controls? I have tried. “Downtime” is pretty effective.

Not on an Android phone...

Great, most people don’t have those. The point is that there are tools that some parents can use to help the school system enforce the no phone policy. Maybe try socializing those and educating parents before spending more money on this.

Actually most people do have those. Android phones have over 70% of the market, sweetie pie.

iPhone users still significantly outnumber android users, in the U.S.

Where did you get that number?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You assume that all parents are middle class and well educated and care about what happens during the school day. They are not and do not.

I find it entertaining that you think it's only poorer, less educated parents who aren't locking down phones. I've seen plenty of UMC entitlement here making it clear they want their own kids to have phone access.