Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I need to get my kid early today for an appointment. In the before times, I would have had the kid set a reminder on her phone to leave class, and then I would text her too when I arrive at the office. What am I supposed to do now?

First of all, unless your kid is of certain age/grade, you are supposed to physically sign them out in the attendance office - or send a message directly to the attendance office allowing them to sign themselves out.

Regardless, since you can't figure out, or even imagine, how it was done in the before-the-before-times (ie, before cell phone days), here's how you can do it:
When you arrive at the school to pick him up, phone the front office or actually go into the office and tell them you're there to pick up your kid.
When he gets to the office, you sign him out and take him with you as you leave.

Well, how does my kid know to go to the office at that time? They used to use their phone as a reminder and I used to text that I was there. What now, since you seem to have all the answers?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that the schools have not replaced it with other ways to set reminders, for parents to contact kids, etc.

The offices are not doing it, so now what?

It has never been the school's responsibility to set reminders for students. Schools have always had front offices and phones for parents to call and for students to go to to use the phone or have their parents contacted. Students still go to the school clinic when they're sick and the nurse still contacts the parents to pick up their kid.

It is NOT the SCHOOL's responsibility to replace a means of communication that they never started in the first place. Schools should have banned the phones from the beginning. They didn't; but they also didn't introduce phones to students and parents as the system for them to communicate with each other during the school day. YOU, WE, our KIDS brought them into the schools and just started using them. They've become a problem, interfering with the school's ability to teach, and the school is setting restrictions....just like they do for other things like tardiness, skipping classes, being in the hallways when they are supposed to be in class, smoking, drug use, offensive material on t-shirts, weapons.

YOU are the one who is responsible for figuring out how to schedule, coordinate, and make contingency plans ahead of time and how to call the front office and work problems through with other adults. The school HAS set policies and procedures: in cases of emergency, phones will be made available to the students as soon as safely possible; parents needing to contact their student may call the front office. If you need to pick them up mid-day, you go to the office and your child will be called to the attendance office to be signed out. If it's after-hours, your kid's phone is back in use.

But will someone in the office call the classroom to tell my child to come out of class? And how is this better? The teacher on here insisted that using classroom phones was much more distracting than a quick text. And someone in the office will need to take time to do this. It also interrupts the class and the lesson for the teacher to answer the phone, so that's lost teacher and instructional time too. How is this an improvement?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I need to get my kid early today for an appointment. In the before times, I would have had the kid set a reminder on her phone to leave class, and then I would text her too when I arrive at the office. What am I supposed to do now?

First of all, unless your kid is of certain age/grade, you are supposed to physically sign them out in the attendance office - or send a message directly to the attendance office allowing them to sign themselves out.

Regardless, since you can't figure out, or even imagine, how it was done in the before-the-before-times (ie, before cell phone days), here's how you can do it:
When you arrive at the school to pick him up, phone the front office or actually go into the office and tell them you're there to pick up your kid.
When he gets to the office, you sign him out and take him with you as you leave.

Well, how does my kid know to go to the office at that time? They used to use their phone as a reminder and I used to text that I was there. What now, since you seem to have all the answers?

NP. Now you have to tell the office what class kid is in, and office will call that teacher. Except the teacher is very unlikely to hear the phone. So office will eventually call someone else to physically walk to the class and collect your child (but they don’t let you go yourself). And it will take forever. At least, this is how it played out when I picked my high schooler up for an appt a week or so ago.

So, it’s doable for sure, but build in a lot of extra time. You could have a kid set a reminder alarm an old fashioned dumb watch or the school device, I suppose.

On another note, before the phone ban, my kids’ art class was supposed to photograph their art pieces to upload for the teacher, and in band, they used phones for tuning instruments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that the schools have not replaced it with other ways to set reminders, for parents to contact kids, etc.

The offices are not doing it, so now what?

It has never been the school's responsibility to set reminders for students. Schools have always had front offices and phones for parents to call and for students to go to to use the phone or have their parents contacted. Students still go to the school clinic when they're sick and the nurse still contacts the parents to pick up their kid.

It is NOT the SCHOOL's responsibility to replace a means of communication that they never started in the first place. Schools should have banned the phones from the beginning. They didn't; but they also didn't introduce phones to students and parents as the system for them to communicate with each other during the school day. YOU, WE, our KIDS brought them into the schools and just started using them. They've become a problem, interfering with the school's ability to teach, and the school is setting restrictions....just like they do for other things like tardiness, skipping classes, being in the hallways when they are supposed to be in class, smoking, drug use, offensive material on t-shirts, weapons.

YOU are the one who is responsible for figuring out how to schedule, coordinate, and make contingency plans ahead of time and how to call the front office and work problems through with other adults. The school HAS set policies and procedures: in cases of emergency, phones will be made available to the students as soon as safely possible; parents needing to contact their student may call the front office. If you need to pick them up mid-day, you go to the office and your child will be called to the attendance office to be signed out. If it's after-hours, your kid's phone is back in use.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I need to get my kid early today for an appointment. In the before times, I would have had the kid set a reminder on her phone to leave class, and then I would text her too when I arrive at the office. What am I supposed to do now?

First of all, unless your kid is of certain age/grade, you are supposed to physically sign them out in the attendance office - or send a message directly to the attendance office allowing them to sign themselves out.

Regardless, since you can't figure out, or even imagine, how it was done in the before-the-before-times (ie, before cell phone days), here's how you can do it:
When you arrive at the school to pick him up, phone the front office or actually go into the office and tell them you're there to pick up your kid.
When he gets to the office, you sign him out and take him with you as you leave.

Well, how does my kid know to go to the office at that time? They used to use their phone as a reminder and I used to text that I was there. What now, since you seem to have all the answers?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I need to get my kid early today for an appointment. In the before times, I would have had the kid set a reminder on her phone to leave class, and then I would text her too when I arrive at the office. What am I supposed to do now?

First of all, unless your kid is of certain age/grade, you are supposed to physically sign them out in the attendance office - or send a message directly to the attendance office allowing them to sign themselves out.

Regardless, since you can't figure out, or even imagine, how it was done in the before-the-before-times (ie, before cell phone days), here's how you can do it:
When you arrive at the school to pick him up, phone the front office or actually go into the office and tell them you're there to pick up your kid.
When he gets to the office, you sign him out and take him with you as you leave.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I need to get my kid early today for an appointment. In the before times, I would have had the kid set a reminder on her phone to leave class, and then I would text her too when I arrive at the office. What am I supposed to do now?

Oh my. You cannot seriously be this helpless.

Anonymous wrote:I need to get my kid early today for an appointment. In the before times, I would have had the kid set a reminder on her phone to leave class, and then I would text her too when I arrive at the office. What am I supposed to do now?

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that the schools have not replaced it with other ways to set reminders, for parents to contact kids, etc.

The offices are not doing it, so now what?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that it's needed, but here's a simple example of how a cell phone was helpful for me, a grown up, while teaching in a classroom. Perhaps I needed assistance in my classroom and my kids were reading quietly. I could text the office and ask for someone to be sent down. The kids wouldn't be disturbed, like if I had called on the landline, and we'd get the support we needed. No harm. No foul. Cell phones aren't the horrible thing some make them out to be.

Look, either cell phones are horrible or they are not. But they can't be horrible when students use them, and the best thing ever when teachers use them. Pick one. Which is it?

+1, all these teachers suddenly saying how awesome phones are and how they minimize distractions when they don't want their own phones taken away, big change from a month ago when they said they were soooo distracting that students can't have them at all even between classes. WHICH IS IT?

Students using their phones during class instead of listening, taking notes, participating in discussion, etc. is distracting: to the students around them, which causes a greater distraction for more students and the teacher and disrupts the teacher's class and/or other students' work.

Teachers using phones for class tasks (apparently timers, taking photos) is not - even if a phone isn't actually necessary to do those things. Students don't need them for calculators in class, either - there are actual calculators they can use.

If teachers were scrolling the internet, texting all their friends, watching youtube videos, or playing video games instead of giving their presentations and lectures, working with individual students, monitoring students group work, or answering students' questions, that would be distracting.

Is that clearer to you now?

No, it's not. This isn't about wanting students to be on the internet or video games during class. It is about letting them use their phones for the same useful reasons teachers are, such as taking picture or using timers. What's so hard to understand about that?

Anonymous wrote:I need to get my kid early today for an appointment. In the before times, I would have had the kid set a reminder on her phone to leave class, and then I would text her too when I arrive at the office. What am I supposed to do now?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that it's needed, but here's a simple example of how a cell phone was helpful for me, a grown up, while teaching in a classroom. Perhaps I needed assistance in my classroom and my kids were reading quietly. I could text the office and ask for someone to be sent down. The kids wouldn't be disturbed, like if I had called on the landline, and we'd get the support we needed. No harm. No foul. Cell phones aren't the horrible thing some make them out to be.

Look, either cell phones are horrible or they are not. But they can't be horrible when students use them, and the best thing ever when teachers use them. Pick one. Which is it?

+1, all these teachers suddenly saying how awesome phones are and how they minimize distractions when they don't want their own phones taken away, big change from a month ago when they said they were soooo distracting that students can't have them at all even between classes. WHICH IS IT?

Students using their phones during class instead of listening, taking notes, participating in discussion, etc. is distracting: to the students around them, which causes a greater distraction for more students and the teacher and disrupts the teacher's class and/or other students' work.

Teachers using phones for class tasks (apparently timers, taking photos) is not - even if a phone isn't actually necessary to do those things. Students don't need them for calculators in class, either - there are actual calculators they can use.

If teachers were scrolling the internet, texting all their friends, watching youtube videos, or playing video games instead of giving their presentations and lectures, working with individual students, monitoring students group work, or answering students' questions, that would be distracting.

Is that clearer to you now?

No, it's not. This isn't about wanting students to be on the internet or video games during class. It is about letting them use their phones for the same useful reasons teachers are, such as taking picture or using timers. What's so hard to understand about that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that it's needed, but here's a simple example of how a cell phone was helpful for me, a grown up, while teaching in a classroom. Perhaps I needed assistance in my classroom and my kids were reading quietly. I could text the office and ask for someone to be sent down. The kids wouldn't be disturbed, like if I had called on the landline, and we'd get the support we needed. No harm. No foul. Cell phones aren't the horrible thing some make them out to be.

Look, either cell phones are horrible or they are not. But they can't be horrible when students use them, and the best thing ever when teachers use them. Pick one. Which is it?

+1, all these teachers suddenly saying how awesome phones are and how they minimize distractions when they don't want their own phones taken away, big change from a month ago when they said they were soooo distracting that students can't have them at all even between classes. WHICH IS IT?

Students using their phones during class instead of listening, taking notes, participating in discussion, etc. is distracting: to the students around them, which causes a greater distraction for more students and the teacher and disrupts the teacher's class and/or other students' work.

Teachers using phones for class tasks (apparently timers, taking photos) is not - even if a phone isn't actually necessary to do those things. Students don't need them for calculators in class, either - there are actual calculators they can use.

If teachers were scrolling the internet, texting all their friends, watching youtube videos, or playing video games instead of giving their presentations and lectures, working with individual students, monitoring students group work, or answering students' questions, that would be distracting.

Is that clearer to you now?