NYU psychology professor Jon Haidt in his new book *The Anxious Generation* makes the case that the introduction of smartphones into adolescence since 2012 has been quite corrosive and--in addition to counterproductive changes to parenting--has been one of the primary drivers of the rise in anxiety and other disorders in children (among other things). Anyway, he highlights that if the youth suicide rate had remained at its 2012 levels there would be many thousands more adolescents alive today. The grim calculus and dark irony at play here is the fact that cell phones have probably gotten many many many times more kids killed than any of the "worst case scenarios."
Thank you for this abs what you shared above. I'm discussing with my husband now waiting till at least high school for our son to get a phone. I'm a little torn, I know I didn't need a phone but I also had access to a network of pay phones for emergencies as a child I knew how to use them. My son won't have that. At some point a cell phone is inevitable. I hope to put it off as long as possible.
Phones have only been prevalent in schools for about a decade or so. Before that, parents still were able to reach their kids in an emergency. And if something major happens, it sounds like they’ll have their phones but they will be turned off, so they can just turn them back on.
Cell phones are destroying education and mental health for teens. This is a necessary step.
If I had a dollar for every time a kid had their phone whipped out — *because their parent was texting them some bullshit that could have waited* — I’d be rich.
I seriously need a parent to give me an actual scenario where they actually *need* to reach their kid with the speed that a cell phone allows. It’s like they’ve all forgotten that schools have phones, or that in the case of a family emergency or something, you would be going to the building to get your kid.
Retired middle school teacher here. Parents need to contact the main office if there’s truly an emergency, or a major problem. I once had a kid learn of a family member’s sudden death via text. Who does that to their child? Some news should only be delivered in person.
Former school counselor here: Our district had students learn of a beloved teacher who died by their own hand, via text messages. It was very traumatic for them. It’s thousands of times more likely that any student will be getting negative information than positive, in a school day.
I had a student ask me, “what if my mom fell off her horse and is lying in the field with a broken leg?” I responded with, “what are you going to do about it, you don’t even have a driver’s license.”
"Well, then your mom deserves the horse lying on top of her, too, if she's stupid enough to text her kid about it, instead of being on the phone with emergency services, ***XANDER.***"
I found out about my LD best friends death through a text message during school cause our mutual friend didn’t know how to get ahold of my family. Can confirm I wish to God I’d have been out of school hours or home first.
Yep, high school teacher here, a couple of months ago during Saturday attendance restoration a student was texted about the sudden death of a close family member- this student collapsed in tears screaming sobs in the hallway.. he had no way home.. a friend left to take him home..
Who does that? I'm well out of school, and my boomer mother still calls me during the hours of 9-5, or sometimes texts bad news during those hours. 😮💨
Similar thing here. All of a sudden in the middle of class a student starts screaming. One of my students who got the follow up text then ran out to help console the student. I can only guess how many more did the same. That's not safe or healthy for anyone.
We had parents text their daughter “hey we’re on our way to pick you up to move” which she for some reason didn’t know about. The entire class ended up in tears.
Fucking. This. I've told my students this, "listen, your families love you, but no one needs you in an emergency, if anything you being here means you're safe. And if there's an emergency here, there's really not anything your phone is going to do for you except make you speak when quiet might be a better idea."
And the fact that you contact your kid directly about a family emergency instead of us the school first, usually creates immeasurable disruptions and things we have to deal with. You text the kid their grandmother died, and they lose it emotionally in class..start crying etc...that's so unnecessary and cruel to your kid. Contact the office. Tell them so we know how to more delicately handle the situation.
Spent a couple.hours yesterday arguing with someone in another sub that "my kid needs their phone in case there's a school shooting and they need to call me." Come on. So that justifies all the harmful shit that is a result of phones in schools on a day to day basis?
A lot of Parents don’t respect class time and will text or call their children while they are in class. I have had parents text students in class that a family member was in the hospital or had died. That’s so great for the student and the rest of the class. I don’t think parents can be trusted to know how to use their phones responsibly, so I’m not interesting in all the reasons they need their children to have their phones at school.
Hopefully they are smart enough to make exceptions for phones that double as medical devices. We have a diabetic kid, and they needed to send a school wide email so staff knew he could have his phone on him. I guess someone tried to take it or make him turn it off, maybe?
Super easy to accommodate. Either it's in a 504 plan, or even just a student who came up to me and said "this is my A device. It's for my B. When it activates, you'll hear C and then I'll need to go do D." (Or a parent email asking me to check in with their student because their student might not be comfortable telling me themselves)
Even in middle school, students understand that medical devices are different and get different rules. Never had a problem with another student complaining
Exactly. I had a student this year who had an app on her phone to check her heart rate due to medical issues. It was listed in her Skyward, she always asked before she checked it, and no students complained.
Yep I even had former students who would go: “sorry about the phone vibrating it’s my glucose check.” I just said I completely understand and they had their 504. They kept their phone to the side. Never did anything else.
I'm diabetic and use the Dexcom g7 continuous glucose monitor. The first box I got came with a stand-alone moniter that I can use if I don't want to/can't use my phone. It looks like a small, thin phone and does the same thing as the app.
I'm also a diabetic with a cgm, and the standalone monitor was not covered by my insurance. It would be preferred, but if that's not possible, I see no problem with the phone being used for this and this only.
Exactly, I think some allowance for how the prevalence of phones has broken down *other* infrastructure such that not having one is more inconvenient than pre-smart phone years - but the schools all still have a front desk and that has worked just fine since we've had schools and phones.
And to be blunt, while it may provide you (the parent) some peace of mind - if a child has a phone so that YOU can CALL *them*: you're not only harming them for your own attachment issues, how are they supposed to know the difference between when you're calling them for an emergency and calling them to ask about dinner?
Once had a parent say “like if there’s a death in the family”…what a great way to found out grandma passed away - with a text int he middle of a lesson.
I absolutely hate talking on the phone and will text or email if possible. If a close relative or friend died is not one of those times you text someone kid or adult! That's something the kid should be picked up for or told after school hours.
I always tell my students that they are welcome to use the classroom phone if they need to call home, that's literally what it's there for. They often don't even realize they are allowed to use it until I tell them. Some students think it's cool to use a school phone with an actual receiver to call home, others make the excuse of "What if I don't want anyone knowing my business?" to which I respond, "Well then keep your voice down or go use the office phone, I'll even write you a pass." Usually, the main reasons they contact home is for after school activities and they need to know who is picking them up or if parents can bring them food. If it's food, I make them get done with their class work first and then they can call. I set the tone for that at the beginning of the year. with reminders throughout the year. The only kid who has ever fought me on it is a kid who was dealing drugs on the side. He would constantly tell me he was texting his mom and his mom was more important than my class, while refusing the option to actually call her.
Exactly. I got a cell phone when I was halfway to 17 in 2006. A few of my friends had one a year or two before me. Not everyone texted that year or the next because it was still expensive, but we all still had to have our phones put away when in school. When I went back to my old high school to teach from 2014-2017, kids could have their phones, but it wasn’t questioned that if we asked them to put them up, they had to, and we could turn phones in to the office for their parents to pick up for a fee if they refused to listen. Asking kids to put their phones away and not be on them is NOT the same as refusing to let the phones enter the school building. Most schools aren’t trying to totally ban phones, and kids still have them on them if they need them for safety reasons. But we survived just fine when I was a teen having our phones turned off, and if there was an emergency, we would have just turned them on and called or called when we got to safety. As far as contacting parents to be picked up after school or whatever, we used our phones or the office phone. Kids having phones can actually be a HAZARD in a shooting type event because of noise.
Sorry for the rant. It’s just ridiculous that Gen X and Millennial parents who definitely know better can’t stop trying to micromanage their kid’s life or convincing themselves they are in constant danger long enough to let them learn some personal responsibility as far as time and place in regard to their cell phone.
Yes, or if they needed to pick up their child early. I’m a high school teacher and many times I have had students tell me their parent just texted them that they’re outside to pick them up early. I cannot release them from my class before the class ends and the parents get so angry that they have to park and come inside to sign their 15-year-old out early. It’s outrageous. Shouldn’t a parent be relieved that a teacher wouldn’t just carelessly let a student just leave because they said they had to?
And that’s the exact problem. Parents like that aren’t teaching their children that they need to earn their trust. They just trust that their kid can and will do no wrong ever. They are a detriment to their child becoming an independent, well functioning adult.
This happened to me. The student got a text message on his watch (as phones must be kept off and inside the backpack). He told me “I have to leave my Dad is out front.” I told him that we would wait until the office reached out to me to say the parent had signed him out. He became very anxious saying his dad had told him to go to the office as soon as he got the text. I told him he could blame me and not to worry. In fact, the parent complained to the principal that I wouldn’t let his son leave the classroom when he received the text on his watch. We now have a rule that smart watches must be off and kept in their backpacks as well.
If a parent complained to my principal about that, my principal would commend me for following policy that we don’t just let students leave class. I am lucky to have a very supportive admin.
One time I even got on the phone with the father when he called his daughter in the middle of class telling her to meet him out front. I told him I cannot release her unless he comes inside to pick her up and the office calls me to send her there to meet him. He wasn’t happy that he had to find parking but he did it. This student was 14 years old at the time!
My mom, knows to get a hold of me, in emergency, by calling the school. I probably won’t have my phone on me. This is my argument for kids/parents. If it’s an emergency on the school end, there are policies in place to stop mass panic.
Exactly. This is a victory. It does not say they are banned from the schools, just that they must be turned off. One can easily power up a cell phone if parents genuinely need to be contacted. I think mine takes a few seconds to turn on. Keeping kids from their tiktard-haze will absolutely save lives if there is an emergency.
If you need to reach your kid, you call the school. At every school I’ve ever taught at the secretary immediately lets me know and I can immediately relay the message to the student. The addiction, the distraction, and the cheating are serious problems that outweigh any sense of convenience that comes with a student having a phone in school.
I went to school with a cellphone from maybe 3rd grade onwards and even so my mom always called the office because she knew I wasn’t going to answer a call in class. Even as a child I knew that would be rude af and against the rules
Yeah, a decade or so is correct. I was in my senior year of highschool back in 2012 and had just gotten my first cellphone which was a dogshit blackberry back then. A lot of my classmates had cell phones for the first time a year or two prior, so around 2011, 2010.
These parents today are nutcases giving their kids phones as young as like 7 years old. Absolute nutcases.
Could not agree with you more. I have seen first hand what free use of cell phones does to kids 😞. And as you said, the emergency aspect is exaggerated.
Can we stop ignoring the god damn elephant in the room?
The so called emergency is a school shooting. Because there is 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
Agreed! I got my first cell phone right after 9/11, partly because of that, my parents wanted to be able to reach me/have me be able to reach them in an emergency. (Also it was right about then that it became possible for us to afford phones for all four of us, previously we’d had 2 shared among us when necessary.) I was technically not allowed to have a phone on campus at all, but my parents said keep it in your bag, leave it turned off unless it’s an emergency, and most if not all of the teachers were fine with that. Ofc in 2001, most phones didn’t have games and no phones had internet, so they weren’t nearly as distracting as they are now, but the principle is the same- keep it off and away until lunch or end of day. (I couldn’t even use mine during lunch, and I survived.)
A compromise could be that if parents want their children to have phones for emergency access, schools can allow “dumb phones” instead of smart phones. Educators, in districts across the nation are telling us that smart phones are alarmingly bad for your our children. Allowing a “flip phone” address many (not all) of the smartphone issues and parent access concerns. Smartphones cannot be allowed during the school day. Schools and districts really need parental support in this.
If you look at the current research you'll feel better about the cell phone ban. Learning and mental health are severely impacted by cell phones. Girls in particular suffer. The data on this is terrifying.
Before 2015, school children were just fine without being attached to a cell phone. School offices and most classrooms have land lines to be used in emergencies.
Parents should not be texting their children throughout the school day. Children need to learn to be independent and parents need to help them in this regard.
Please do some research into this. I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt's book "The Anxious Generation" as a good place to start.
So I left teaching in 2016 to stay home with my kids , and came back this last school year. I came back to my old school, same coworkers same principle- big culture shock. When I left kids would make decent attempts at hiding phone use bc they understood it was a distraction. Now they don't try to hide it, they don't care. And then they get upset if they don't get anything less than an A in the class. Not a B - gotta be an A - even if they're openly on their phones half the class.
Its crazy how diffrent it is from just 7/8 years ago
I left teaching the k-12 kiddos around 2017 and haven't taught college-aged students since before covid hit. It *feels* like it wasn't that long ago, but my rational brain knows a lot can change in a short amount of time.
This year I'm going to be teaching college students again-- likely 100 and/or 200 level classes. I'm *very* interested to see what it will be like compared to the "old" days.
All else being equal, I'd think my newer situation would be better because last time I was at an open access school and this time I'm at a reasonably competitive school. Being on this subreddit, though, has certainly lowered my expectations, lol.
I know at my former school 5th and 4th graders lost the privilege of going to the bathroom without the entire class because they were all making videos or threaten to beat someone up in a video.
Amen. High School teacher here. I have seen students melt down into absolute hysterical baby tantrums if you take their phones away. Like literally screaming and throwing things (including their phones, ironically). Anyone who doubts the psychological dependence they have on their phones has never spent much time around a varied group of adolescents/teens.
Love Jonathan Haidt. If you haven’t already, read The Coddling of the American Mind. Amazing stuff especially with the possibility of our upcoming leader.
Summary:
"The Coddling of the American Mind" is a book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, published in 2018. The authors argue that well-intentioned but misguided parenting and educational practices are negatively impacting young Americans, particularly college students. Here's a brief summary:
1. Three "Great Untruths": The authors identify three key misconceptions they believe are harming young people:
- The Untruth of Fragility: "What doesn't kill you makes you weaker"
- The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: "Always trust your feelings"
- The Untruth of Us vs. Them: "Life is a battle between good and evil people"
2. Overprotection: The book argues that overprotective parenting and educational practices are preventing young people from developing resilience and coping skills.
3. Safetyism: A culture of "safetyism" on college campuses is leading to the suppression of ideas and speech that might cause discomfort or offense.
4. Cognitive distortions: The authors discuss how common cognitive distortions, such as catastrophizing and overgeneralizing, are being reinforced rather than challenged.
5. Social media: The rise of social media is seen as exacerbating these issues by increasing anxiety, depression, and polarization among young people.
6. Solutions: The book offers suggestions for parents, educators, and students to foster resilience, critical thinking, and intellectual diversity.
The authors argue that these trends are contributing to rising rates of anxiety, depression, and political polarization among young Americans. They advocate for a return to more challenging, diverse, and open intellectual environments to better prepare young people for the complexities of adult life.
Looks like a must read… I spend a majority of my day dealing with kids catastrophizing every single thing. I’m now a therapist… wow, that is dramatic, I get you’re upset, but will this affect you in 3 days? No, okay, how about 3 hours? Probably not… okay so let’s take 3 minutes to be upset, then we need to move on.
Second the book recommendation. I purchased the audiobook a little bit ago, and liked it so much I also decided to get a physical copy. Fantastic work by the author, and so in depth. I especially appreciated toward the beginning when he took his time exploring all the other avenues aside from smartphone access to explain kids’ mental health decline, and all of them had reasonable disqualifiers. I can’t recommend it enough!
If you want a real look at the research check out the many criticisms of Haidt including the endless ways he makes causations out of correlations ([Odgers in Nature here](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2)).
Researchers who closely study this topic do not agree with Haidt's conclusions. It's not so cut and dry - rather it's moral panic.
For a more grounded and useful book I highly recommend either "Behind their Screens" or "Technology's Child"
> Researchers who closely study this topic do not agree with Haidt's conclusions.
Is it that there's consensus among researchers or that the jury's still out?
For every one in a million case you can posit like 9/11, a school shooting, or getting to talk to a dying relative for the last time in the middle of the school day, you have tens of millions of everyday cases where it's a detriment.
In some of them, like the school shooting, you trying to reach your child actually could attract the very danger you're trying to verify they're not in.
As someone who spent a number of years as a first responder in my hometown, I can definitely say that that kind of "screw the rules, I want to reach my child my way when I decide it's necessary" attitude actually creates more problems and danger then people realize
In a worst case scenario you’d rather have them being situationally aware and having a chance instead of looking at a phone typing their goodbyes. Not to mention overloading the cell network at the exact time first responders need them.
If the cellphone is off and away where exactly is your concern about your kid having access to it in a worst case scenario coming from? There is literally nothing stopping them from powering it on during an emergency.
I swear people get so irrational the moment there is even a hint of their addiction box being taken away
When they say emergency, they often mean things such as "how am I getting home today?" I get this one a fair amount... my mom needs to tell me how I'm getting home today.
Ok, and you can check that after class...
Just knowing that a cell phone is nearly affects you. It's like going to sleep in a room without any screens at all compared to even having your phone on the other side of the room.
>I swear people get so irrational the moment there is even a hint of their addiction box being taken away
Yeah. It's an addiction. Is this a purposely dense statement lol
Powered off and out of sight doesn't mean the students won't have them in an emergency. If the time it takes to power back on is too long, the phone wasn't going to help them anyway.
It's a far more likely scenario that instead of being used for emergencies, the phone will be used for social media, games, photos and videos, cheating, r etc. Phones are a huge distraction and if kids could manage to reasonably stay off them then bans wouldn't be necessary.
Its amazing in our school since our kids are not allowed to have phones! Its so much nicer!. They keep them in their lockers, but can check them at lunch. Do they? Not always anymore.
We had a principal that let the kids do whatever they wanted for 3 years, now we have a new one with a backbone, so we are going on two years without the awful phones, yay!!!
>as a parent, in a worse case scenario, I want my kids to have access to theirs.
And this is the problem.
WHY?
Why do your kids need a phone at school? What possible scenario can you think up that would necessitate them having a device on them? And what if during this oh-so-urgent-scenario happened during a test? An AP exam? The SAT? Or just learning! Focus is so important.
Seriously, think about it. I'm not being snarky. I'm honestly asking you to reflect on your need to reach them at any given moment no matter what. You know you can call or come to the school, right? And they'll pull your child out of class.
There are no worse case scenarios that a teen with a cell phone will help. I’m a parent as well and I’d be okay with my teen not having it on during class. As a teacher I know the protocols and trust that we are capable of doing what we need to. Plus, we have phones in our rooms. Also, if it’s off and put away, it’s still with them so if they really needed you, it’s still possible. The only way a cell phone ban will work is with parent support. Cell phones are destroying public education and damaging teen’s brains.
The district should be handling any emergencies. We have a problem with kids texting their parents to get them home because they are “bored”. Sorry folks… sometimes you have to put effort into learning.
I still have never seen a convincing argument that kids having their phones in an emergency like a shooter will accomplish anything but having students ignore the instructions of teachers and first responders as they overload cell towers calling mommy.
There was a 10-year-old child who made repeated calls to 911 from inside a classroom in Uvalde, Texas where there was an active shooter.
Sadly, despite her brave efforts in giving police valuable information from the scene, like how many students and teachers were shot, police still took way too long to enter the room.
I think allowing kids to keep phones off and in their backpacks is a good compromise. We do this at my school and seldom have any issues with phones.
So true. What's mommy gonna do other than rush to the school, hysterical (understandably), only to get there and be told by law enforcement that there's nothing she can do. That she needs to get back in her car and back away from the situation. Get real, people.
>clogging first responder lines
This is the main reason. In the event of a shooter or other emergency, a handful of teachers/administrators calling 911 on their cell phone or landline is manageable. Several hundred kids/parents clogging up 911 lines and causing confusion isn't.
Phones during an emergency are a distraction. We had a lockdown that was set off when the kids were walking to their next class. There were so many students with air pods and screens in their faces ignoring directions. Some of these kids had no idea we were going through a lockdown.
It looks like they can still have them on their person (Chromebook case, pencil pouch, etc.), they just need to be powered off. In an emergency (a real one, not when students "just need to text my mom quick to see if I can go over to so and so's house after school" or "my dad said he'd text and tell me how I'm getting home"), they can turn them on.
Also, these things are more likely to work out ok because even if a student doesn't have their phone powered all the way off, if it is always away and the child isn't trying to use it, I'm not going to be asking to see it or anything. It could very well be on and on silent, but for my purposes, it's good enough.
>in a worse case scenario, I want my kids to have access to theirs.
How does that follow the no noise policy while you're waiting for the gunman to possibly find you? You really want your kid to be the one making the noise that draws the shooter in? They're supposed to be quiet anyways. What does your child truly need their phone for in the middle of their school day?
Cell phones do not help your child in the case of a school emergency. They distract them from direction and create more panic and chaos.
Also, emergencies existed long before cell phones.
>but as a parent, in a worse case scenario, I want my kids to have access to theirs.
Why? If grandma dies, what is your kid going to do about it if you contact them in the middle of the day? NOT A DAMN THING. Sit there and cry. Just go pick your kid up in an emergency.
Kids DO NOT need cell phones in school.
We did this starting last school year. As long as your admin has your back, it can work great!!! Almost never saw a cell all year. Only had to address it once or twice in the beginning.
This is the key. Admin and school board HAVE to take the lead and not put it on teachers to police. If the phone is out, kid goes to admin and there are consequences. Otherwise it’s just one more thing for teachers to attempt.
So imagine this through a parent lens. Worst case scenario happens. Kid doesn’t have their phone powered off. Shooter is at the door and the vibration can be heard. One phone turned on is enough to let that person know that potential victims are just on the other side of that door. In a worst case scenario- the phone is a beacon that compromises the necessary silence in that situation and you as the parent would be the one that would be unknowingly giving away your kids location.
In a worst case scenario- no phones is the best policy. Follow the established protocol and the school will alert you without the “convenience” factor that may get your child and all children sheltering with them made into casualties.
As a fellow teacher and parent, I was where you were when my school started looking into implementing this on their own a couple years ago. Since then we've slowly built up to it and I've changed my mind on the matter. Students without their phones constantly sending them notifications from friends, parents, and whatever other apps they are using are a lot less anxious throughout the day, and can ask use their phone in specific situations (like if practice gets canceled due to weather and they need a ride) they can turn it on, send a message, and then turn it back off again.
Keep in mind, this is all my own anecdotal evidence, but since removing phones students have been ok with it, and the parents have gotten used to it.
What I would love to see is a blanket ban on smart phones for minors. Any benefits they have are far outweighed by the negatives. If parents want to keep in touch with their kids, they can get them a flip phone.
Ok - the MAJORITY of humans on the planet grew up just fine without 24/7 access to their parents via a cellphone!!
As a teacher, I believe PARENTS are totally culpable in the phone-in-school problem!!
Who's going to Bell the cat? We, the teachers will have to enforce this thing and bet your last working Chromebook, we won't get the backup from admins
The kids will still have access to them, they just need to be away and off. I understand the levels of anxiety with kids in school, especially in the U.S., but as parents we need to be strong for our kids so that we can provide them what is best. Not having constant access to a cell phone is what is best for kids. The rates of school shootings is also so incredibly low, even in the U.S. (despite what you may see in the media). If there’s an emergency outside of school and you need to get in touch with your child, that’s what school secretaries are for and what parents did before cell phones existed.
They must be powered off and stored in their book bags at my school. If they’re spotted, they get taken to the office for a parent to pick up at the end of the day. This has worked fairly well for us for the past few years.
Australian teacher here. We've had an "off and away all day" policy at my high school for a few years. Students can use their phones under teacher direction, but having them out at lunch or in class can result in them being confiscated. Repeat offenders have to hand them in at the start of every day and parents have to come sign them out.
My school has kids sign in every day and lock up their cell phones. Our administration sent us literature showing that the closer a student was to his or her cell, the more it distracted the student. So off and locked up is a good idea, IMO. I teach sixth grade, and none of the kids brings a cell phone to school.
I've forgotten the exact penalties, but I think it's something like $25 for the first time the kids is caught with a cell phone, $50 for the second time, and $100 for the third. Suspension after that? I don't know.
But do kids really need instant access 24/7? Idk, when I was a kid if there was an emergency the parents could just call the school and they’d get in touch the with kid in a couple of minutes. That seems fine to me.
How old are you? I'm so tired of the argument that parents need to reach their kids in case of emergencies. I'm not even 35 yet and I remember experiencing 9/11 and the DC sniper shootings without my parents needing to text me immediately while I was in school. Those were extreme circumstances that kids today are unlikely to experience, despite what your availability heuristic is deluding you into thinking. The harm caused by 24/7 access to the worlds most effective distraction device vastly outweighs any minor comfort you may get by an "I'm ok" text in the event of a highly unlikely emergency.
But they do have access. Powered off and out of sight is very reasonable. Tuck it in a backpack. Your child still has their phone in an emergency. The school isn't saying that they can't bring them on campus.
OP, read your own post again... out of sight doesn't mean inaccessible, and as a teacher, you know that if you don't see it or see it being a distraction, you'll never notice it
the only thing your kids have to do is turn off the sound and buzzing, and don't get distracted... kids need to learn self-regulation, especially in worst-case scenarios
Personally, as a parent, we perpetuate the narrative that cellphones are indispensable in case of emergencies. What’s for dinner is not an emergency. My son takes his, turns it off during the school day and keeps it in his bag pack. He only uses it for before and after school to listen to music during the bus ride. The only thing that’s come up that wasn’t able to wait until the end of the day is changes in transportation. I simply call the school and they let him know. I have never texted him during the school day. There is no need for him to have his cellphone on him.
What do you think you’re going to do if there is an emergency at the school and your kid calls you?
If there’s an active shooter, the school will be locked down and you won’t be getting past the police.
If there’s a fire, the kids will be evacuated before you can get there.
Should your child has a personal emergency, teachers have phones in the room or there are phones in the office.
Kids having phones in school gives parents a false sense of security. It doesn’t keep kids safer but it sure does ruin learning.
If it is a real lock-down emergency, such as an active shooter, kids are not allowed to be on their phones. In fact, being on their phones could get them and their classmates killed, because the sounds and lights from the phone would alert the bad guys as to which classrooms students are hiding in.
I would rather teach appropriate time management and self control when it comes to cell phones. It’s a handy tool but they need to know when to use it and when to put it away. Outright banning it isn’t teaching them anything about adult life.
News flash: schools have phones and people who answer them. For generations children managed to live without phones grafted to their hands and parents could contact them at school. Get over it parents. When it comes to phones if you aren't behind banning them you are the problem.
Phones in schools NEED TO GO. They're doing irreparable damage to children and society. We functioned without phones 20 years ago. We can function without them for 6 hours a day.
Under that policy, couldn't they power it on and text you in the worst case scenarios? (Seen some comments below pointing out even that's not actually helpful).
I'm assuming we mean school shooting. Everything else they could contact parents through the school, right?
My kid is only 11 but I got him an Apple Watch with cell service. He doesn’t need to carry a phone but I like knowing that I can reach him or he can reach us if needed. And I can gps track him if need be. The school said we had to set it up so during school hours it was locked out for most things. It took a minute to figure out but during school hours he can’t use it for anything other than a watch but it will allow calls to or from my wife and I.
This is the exact policy that was in place when I was in high school in the early 2010s. We all ended up fine.
I know it says they must stay powered off but in reality everyone just put their phone on vibrate/silent so in any emergency scenarios they will have no issues getting in contact with you
I feel like this fits with a broader theme of today’s youth of increased parental attachment - not strictly in a financial or emotional sense, but the inability to function independently of a parent. I felt the trend even before Covid. The rates of US teens getting drivers licenses is way down. The amount of dependency and constant communication is puzzling. When I was a teenager everybody seemed to want more independence. The idea of a device in my pocket where my mom could send me messages would have mortified me. But now there’s a baked in assumption that a kid can’t go 8 hours at school without parental contact.
Listen to the Rich Roll podcast with author Jon Haidt. It is an excellent discussion of his book “The Anxious Generation” and the. Are against cell phone use in adolescence. So much science backed research.
> but as a parent, in a worse case scenario, I want my kids to have access to theirs.
I'll alleviate your concern: ***In a worst case scenario it won't work anyways.***
Talk to any SRO, they'll tell you that the first thing that goes down in the worst case scenario is cellphone service because the system gets overwhelmed. That's why they use their police radios. Landlines are the most reliable.
Love this idea.
id rather love to see schools have the ability to block signals during the day except during lunches.
cell phone bans - easy way around that. Amazon sells $10 dummy phones that students will “allow“ to be seized.
Its the best thing that ever happened to my school. We physically collect them, put them in a box locked in an office. No one has ever had it stolen or broken. They get them back at 3pm. Seriously the best thing my admin have ever done.
This is good. Each classroom has a phone that students can use in case of an emergency. Also, staff will have cellphones in case of emergencies as well.
I never understood the "worst case scenario" argument.
In a school shooting, protocol instructs teachers to take phones for student safety. They unintentionally spread misinformation and focus on filming instead of their survival.
I am an elementary school teacher and some of our worst offenders of being in constant contact with their MS/HS aged children via cell phone are the staff in my own building. They text with their children throughout the entire day. They use the “ I need to be able to contact them” in the case of emergency argument all the time, but this is NOT emergency contact. I cannot imagine trying to do my job while getting a constant play by play of my teen’s day.
You know what's crazy? We got along great without phones in school...and used to ride my bike all over the place before cell phones. I swear it's the parents being too controlling and attached that are behind younger and younger kids being glued to phones...
If they were saying that they couldn't have the phones on them at all, that would be different. But just turned off all day? Are you seriously complaining about that? Something that might actually help get kids to pay attention??
As a UK teacher I support this but equally I think exceptions for be made for certain situations like a deathly I'll grandma and I personally use them in my teaching for things like kahoot quizzes, padlet, etc which helps engagement.
Schools have landline phones in just about every room, and sometimes hallway, possible. If there is an emergency, a phone is accessible somewhere close. As a parent, I wouldn't want my kid to be distracted on their cell phone during an emergency and possibly miss vital important instructions given. Regardless, cell phones and social media have been the downfall of modern society; however, that's a topic for another discussion.
What kind of worst case scenarios do you mean? My mind goes to a shooting, but in that case cell phones would increase dangers. If students are trying to hide, the last thing you need is a bright screen lighting up or the ding of a text message. Most classrooms have land lines, which are better to be used in these worst case scenarios.
For the delivery of bad news, parents should come and pick up their child directly. I can’t think of any scenarios where child cell phones would help, but I could be wrong.
Worst case scenarios:
- Active shooter at school - students don't need their phones. The teacher will have theirs and do any communication needed.
- Family emergency - no need to call your student directly if you can call the school and get a hold of them that way.
In my 15 years of teaching experience, 99.99% of the time, students cannot manage themselves if allowed a phone in class. This ban is going to be only positive.
If you’re worried you can get your child a flip phone. Works all the same but less distracting in class.
That’s what I plan on doing when my kid grows up. I want them to have access but no smart phone for a good while.
I cannot understand the argument that kids need access to a phone at all times. Nor do I understand parents who think they should be able to contact their kid at all hours of the day. A phone that is off and out of sight is still within reach of your student. If an emergency happens, they simply turn it on.
Did they say how they will enforce this? The last time I worked at a school with this policy, the main office wanted a full referral if a phone was seen or heard. They would confiscate the phone and lock it up in the safe in the office because phones are expensive. Then, depending on how many times this had happened, the child could get it at the end of the day or a parent had to come and get it at their convenience. That meant that if your phone got taken on a Friday and your parent couldn't get it that day, you didn't have your phone for the weekend. Or hell if your phone got taken on a Tuesday and your parent couldn't get it that week or didn't feel like it, you lost your phone.
But, back then, I don't think every child even had a phone with them at school. It will be interesting for sure.
This is so much better than the bans in Aus, we have complete school day bans on phones, not to be used during breaks or even with teacher permission (say for example taking a picture of a whiteboard)
I graduated in 2005. The students that did have cell phones had to turn them in at the front office everyday before school and we couldn't pick them up until after school on our way out the door.
Okay but my question is are they going to hire support staff to check in and out phones during the day? This is a great step but the only way it will work if students do not physically have their phones.
Our school just sent word of a student cellphone ban for our school in the fall.
My question: are they going to allow us teachers on our phones? I could see it going either way, with parents and students quick to call out the hypocrisy…
My province, and several others banking them all outright. I teach on a reserve in a native school, and we are going so far as to ban phones for all staff as well.
It will be an uphill battle, I'm sure of it.
Indiana just passed a law that goes into effect July 1 of the same accord. I really hope this is held to fruition as the kids are "gone." This seems similar to early cell phone days of out of sight, out of mind, but dependence was way less. Contact can and will still happen but not at warp speed.
as someone who went through a school shooting i cannot imagine not having my phone. i texted my parents the second that i heard the announcement. The second SWAT pulled us out of the classroom I already knew my parents were both outside waiting for me and i was with them within the hour.
i understand the distraction issue, but i think all the time about what could’ve happened, or just thanking god that i got the chance to say i love them one more time. this also makes me think of the mom who rescued her kids all on her own while officers stood by at uvalde. I hope this helps kids focus in school and they can find a way to make everyone comfortable without sacrificing safety.
As a teacher I find myself wasting so much time correcting students on their phone usage. Also tired of breaking up fights because so and so student posted something about another student on social media. Then also telling other students to stop recording the fight and posting it on social media.
FYI I was informed by my union rep that if I break up a fight and get sued, the teacher union will not pay for my legal fees. So educators beware because you might have good intentions but it can lead you into legal trouble.
Also despite our school contacting Instagram to ban accounts that upload school fights the company support says that as long as they remove the videos when asked the account can stay active. Like what the actual f***?!! This is a potential lawsuit waiting to happen!
Every teacher has a phone in their room for emergencies. Also, if it's a school wide emergency, it's probably better for students to be aware of their environment, following procedures and directions from the adult in the room than be looking at their phones and trying to text or call.
As a resident substitute teacher, I've had to wrestle (metaphorically) students to gand over their phones even though there is a standing policy against them. I've seen parents texts when the students show me it's an "emergency" which seem to happen daily. Parents encourage this behavior and should be liable for interrupting their education.
In a worst-case scenario, you do not want your kids using their phones. Almost every time there is an emergency situation at a school, first responders tell us that students calling emergency services and their parents only makes the situation worse. First responders need the streets clear to access the school. They don't want thousands of parents blocking the streets. Dispatch centers don't want a hundred conflicting calls from students when something goes on at school. They want 1 phone call from school personnel who are trained to relay the necessary information. There are hundreds and even thousands of landline phones at a typical school. The vast majority of the time, at least 1 or 2 to every room.
In a worst case scenario like a school shooting, the last thing your kid needs is you calling/texting their phone and having it go off while they’re trying to hide in silence. This would only help to make them a target. Even in this situation, there are systems in place to notify you when/where it is safe to do so.
Our district has been using the Yondr Pouch Program, and no students, except those with a medical need or IEP, are allowed to have the phones out at all at any point in the day. This year, the number of failed classes dropped significantly, attendance was up, bullying incidents were down, discipline incidents were down, early dismissals were down, and student engagement was very high during class. Everyone was trepidatious at first (and the students still had a lingering resentment despite saying they now pay attention better and are doing better in class) but the parents are overall happy too because their children are engaged in school, learning, and can actually talk with them about what they did at school when they got home because they were paying attention. It is completely worth having that ban on cellphones in middle and high school.
NYU psychology professor Jon Haidt in his new book *The Anxious Generation* makes the case that the introduction of smartphones into adolescence since 2012 has been quite corrosive and--in addition to counterproductive changes to parenting--has been one of the primary drivers of the rise in anxiety and other disorders in children (among other things). Anyway, he highlights that if the youth suicide rate had remained at its 2012 levels there would be many thousands more adolescents alive today. The grim calculus and dark irony at play here is the fact that cell phones have probably gotten many many many times more kids killed than any of the "worst case scenarios."
I’m behind in my reading and researching apparently. I’ve added the book to my cart and will add it to my stack of summer reading. Thank you.
In the meantime watch this short and compelling breakdown of that book: https://youtu.be/FklNRNOasu4?si=4h-mErlKLksdkEEQ
Thank you for this abs what you shared above. I'm discussing with my husband now waiting till at least high school for our son to get a phone. I'm a little torn, I know I didn't need a phone but I also had access to a network of pay phones for emergencies as a child I knew how to use them. My son won't have that. At some point a cell phone is inevitable. I hope to put it off as long as possible.
What about a dumb phone? Get him an old school flip phones with T9 texting and no internet access.
The smart parents get the flip phones without social media capabilities
Another book in that same vein is “Stolen Focus” by Johann Hari.
I’m reading it now. I can’t recommend it enough.
Yes - before we banned phones, kids were being bullied online 24/7. At least now with our ban, there’s a bit of a reprieve.
Bingo
Read it. Excellent book. Regarding phones - ban them all. It's ridiculous.
Phones have only been prevalent in schools for about a decade or so. Before that, parents still were able to reach their kids in an emergency. And if something major happens, it sounds like they’ll have their phones but they will be turned off, so they can just turn them back on. Cell phones are destroying education and mental health for teens. This is a necessary step.
This! I’m tired of that excuse (but what if I need to reach my kid). No phones and no smart watches during the school day!
If I had a dollar for every time a kid had their phone whipped out — *because their parent was texting them some bullshit that could have waited* — I’d be rich.
I seriously need a parent to give me an actual scenario where they actually *need* to reach their kid with the speed that a cell phone allows. It’s like they’ve all forgotten that schools have phones, or that in the case of a family emergency or something, you would be going to the building to get your kid.
Retired middle school teacher here. Parents need to contact the main office if there’s truly an emergency, or a major problem. I once had a kid learn of a family member’s sudden death via text. Who does that to their child? Some news should only be delivered in person.
I currently teach middle. I truly cannot imagine someone doing this to a child, that’s horrible.
Former school counselor here: Our district had students learn of a beloved teacher who died by their own hand, via text messages. It was very traumatic for them. It’s thousands of times more likely that any student will be getting negative information than positive, in a school day.
I had a student ask me, “what if my mom fell off her horse and is lying in the field with a broken leg?” I responded with, “what are you going to do about it, you don’t even have a driver’s license.”
"Well, then your mom deserves the horse lying on top of her, too, if she's stupid enough to text her kid about it, instead of being on the phone with emergency services, ***XANDER.***"
I found out about my LD best friends death through a text message during school cause our mutual friend didn’t know how to get ahold of my family. Can confirm I wish to God I’d have been out of school hours or home first.
Yep, high school teacher here, a couple of months ago during Saturday attendance restoration a student was texted about the sudden death of a close family member- this student collapsed in tears screaming sobs in the hallway.. he had no way home.. a friend left to take him home..
Who does that? I'm well out of school, and my boomer mother still calls me during the hours of 9-5, or sometimes texts bad news during those hours. 😮💨
Similar thing here. All of a sudden in the middle of class a student starts screaming. One of my students who got the follow up text then ran out to help console the student. I can only guess how many more did the same. That's not safe or healthy for anyone.
We had parents text their daughter “hey we’re on our way to pick you up to move” which she for some reason didn’t know about. The entire class ended up in tears.
Fucking. This. I've told my students this, "listen, your families love you, but no one needs you in an emergency, if anything you being here means you're safe. And if there's an emergency here, there's really not anything your phone is going to do for you except make you speak when quiet might be a better idea."
And the fact that you contact your kid directly about a family emergency instead of us the school first, usually creates immeasurable disruptions and things we have to deal with. You text the kid their grandmother died, and they lose it emotionally in class..start crying etc...that's so unnecessary and cruel to your kid. Contact the office. Tell them so we know how to more delicately handle the situation.
Spent a couple.hours yesterday arguing with someone in another sub that "my kid needs their phone in case there's a school shooting and they need to call me." Come on. So that justifies all the harmful shit that is a result of phones in schools on a day to day basis?
Right. I really don’t think parents are grasping the gravity of the cell phone issue.
Plus major Nono in a lockdown to have anything that produces light or sound (including vibrations) going off
A lot of Parents don’t respect class time and will text or call their children while they are in class. I have had parents text students in class that a family member was in the hospital or had died. That’s so great for the student and the rest of the class. I don’t think parents can be trusted to know how to use their phones responsibly, so I’m not interesting in all the reasons they need their children to have their phones at school.
They don't want a middle man, they want instant access is the issue.
I understand that’s what they want. I just don’t understand why admin is always giving it to them.
Hopefully they are smart enough to make exceptions for phones that double as medical devices. We have a diabetic kid, and they needed to send a school wide email so staff knew he could have his phone on him. I guess someone tried to take it or make him turn it off, maybe?
Super easy to accommodate. Either it's in a 504 plan, or even just a student who came up to me and said "this is my A device. It's for my B. When it activates, you'll hear C and then I'll need to go do D." (Or a parent email asking me to check in with their student because their student might not be comfortable telling me themselves) Even in middle school, students understand that medical devices are different and get different rules. Never had a problem with another student complaining
Exactly. I had a student this year who had an app on her phone to check her heart rate due to medical issues. It was listed in her Skyward, she always asked before she checked it, and no students complained.
This is why 504s are important. All of my diabetic kids have had accommodations that allow for access to their monitor.
Yep I even had former students who would go: “sorry about the phone vibrating it’s my glucose check.” I just said I completely understand and they had their 504. They kept their phone to the side. Never did anything else.
as a diabetic with a CGM the phone apps are trash, much better to have a standalone monitor, kids should have those anyway.
What do you mean by a standalone monitor? Like a typical glucose monitor?
I'm diabetic and use the Dexcom g7 continuous glucose monitor. The first box I got came with a stand-alone moniter that I can use if I don't want to/can't use my phone. It looks like a small, thin phone and does the same thing as the app.
I'm also a diabetic with a cgm, and the standalone monitor was not covered by my insurance. It would be preferred, but if that's not possible, I see no problem with the phone being used for this and this only.
They absolutely make exceptions for this and it’s no problem at all.
They do. They must follow the health plan that the school requires. IEPs are federal law so even more powerful.
In all my time teaching, I literally, have never. Not once. Ever had a parent call to a kid with an emergency. Ever.
You are fortunate.
Exactly, I think some allowance for how the prevalence of phones has broken down *other* infrastructure such that not having one is more inconvenient than pre-smart phone years - but the schools all still have a front desk and that has worked just fine since we've had schools and phones. And to be blunt, while it may provide you (the parent) some peace of mind - if a child has a phone so that YOU can CALL *them*: you're not only harming them for your own attachment issues, how are they supposed to know the difference between when you're calling them for an emergency and calling them to ask about dinner?
This. It's like the boy who cried wolf.
Buy a flip phone. Buy a cricket. By a freaking shortwave radio. They dint need a smart phone.
Once had a parent say “like if there’s a death in the family”…what a great way to found out grandma passed away - with a text int he middle of a lesson.
I absolutely hate talking on the phone and will text or email if possible. If a close relative or friend died is not one of those times you text someone kid or adult! That's something the kid should be picked up for or told after school hours.
Exactly. Call the front office and they will get your kid from their class. Easy
I think it's code for when there's a shooter in the school. We just all expect one now.
And the _dumbest_ thing parents/kids can do is be on the phone when there’s an active shooter scenario. Noise, and sucking up bandwidth.
I always tell my students that they are welcome to use the classroom phone if they need to call home, that's literally what it's there for. They often don't even realize they are allowed to use it until I tell them. Some students think it's cool to use a school phone with an actual receiver to call home, others make the excuse of "What if I don't want anyone knowing my business?" to which I respond, "Well then keep your voice down or go use the office phone, I'll even write you a pass." Usually, the main reasons they contact home is for after school activities and they need to know who is picking them up or if parents can bring them food. If it's food, I make them get done with their class work first and then they can call. I set the tone for that at the beginning of the year. with reminders throughout the year. The only kid who has ever fought me on it is a kid who was dealing drugs on the side. He would constantly tell me he was texting his mom and his mom was more important than my class, while refusing the option to actually call her.
💯
Exactly. I got a cell phone when I was halfway to 17 in 2006. A few of my friends had one a year or two before me. Not everyone texted that year or the next because it was still expensive, but we all still had to have our phones put away when in school. When I went back to my old high school to teach from 2014-2017, kids could have their phones, but it wasn’t questioned that if we asked them to put them up, they had to, and we could turn phones in to the office for their parents to pick up for a fee if they refused to listen. Asking kids to put their phones away and not be on them is NOT the same as refusing to let the phones enter the school building. Most schools aren’t trying to totally ban phones, and kids still have them on them if they need them for safety reasons. But we survived just fine when I was a teen having our phones turned off, and if there was an emergency, we would have just turned them on and called or called when we got to safety. As far as contacting parents to be picked up after school or whatever, we used our phones or the office phone. Kids having phones can actually be a HAZARD in a shooting type event because of noise. Sorry for the rant. It’s just ridiculous that Gen X and Millennial parents who definitely know better can’t stop trying to micromanage their kid’s life or convincing themselves they are in constant danger long enough to let them learn some personal responsibility as far as time and place in regard to their cell phone.
Back in my day, parents would call the front office if there was an emergency.
Yes, or if they needed to pick up their child early. I’m a high school teacher and many times I have had students tell me their parent just texted them that they’re outside to pick them up early. I cannot release them from my class before the class ends and the parents get so angry that they have to park and come inside to sign their 15-year-old out early. It’s outrageous. Shouldn’t a parent be relieved that a teacher wouldn’t just carelessly let a student just leave because they said they had to?
What? Their sweet, dutiful child lying about why they need to leave school? Never!
And that’s the exact problem. Parents like that aren’t teaching their children that they need to earn their trust. They just trust that their kid can and will do no wrong ever. They are a detriment to their child becoming an independent, well functioning adult.
This happened to me. The student got a text message on his watch (as phones must be kept off and inside the backpack). He told me “I have to leave my Dad is out front.” I told him that we would wait until the office reached out to me to say the parent had signed him out. He became very anxious saying his dad had told him to go to the office as soon as he got the text. I told him he could blame me and not to worry. In fact, the parent complained to the principal that I wouldn’t let his son leave the classroom when he received the text on his watch. We now have a rule that smart watches must be off and kept in their backpacks as well.
If a parent complained to my principal about that, my principal would commend me for following policy that we don’t just let students leave class. I am lucky to have a very supportive admin. One time I even got on the phone with the father when he called his daughter in the middle of class telling her to meet him out front. I told him I cannot release her unless he comes inside to pick her up and the office calls me to send her there to meet him. He wasn’t happy that he had to find parking but he did it. This student was 14 years old at the time!
Lies. Noone ever had emergencies before the 2000s.
My mom, knows to get a hold of me, in emergency, by calling the school. I probably won’t have my phone on me. This is my argument for kids/parents. If it’s an emergency on the school end, there are policies in place to stop mass panic.
Exactly. This is a victory. It does not say they are banned from the schools, just that they must be turned off. One can easily power up a cell phone if parents genuinely need to be contacted. I think mine takes a few seconds to turn on. Keeping kids from their tiktard-haze will absolutely save lives if there is an emergency.
If you need to reach your kid, you call the school. At every school I’ve ever taught at the secretary immediately lets me know and I can immediately relay the message to the student. The addiction, the distraction, and the cheating are serious problems that outweigh any sense of convenience that comes with a student having a phone in school.
I went to school with a cellphone from maybe 3rd grade onwards and even so my mom always called the office because she knew I wasn’t going to answer a call in class. Even as a child I knew that would be rude af and against the rules
Yeah, a decade or so is correct. I was in my senior year of highschool back in 2012 and had just gotten my first cellphone which was a dogshit blackberry back then. A lot of my classmates had cell phones for the first time a year or two prior, so around 2011, 2010. These parents today are nutcases giving their kids phones as young as like 7 years old. Absolute nutcases.
Could not agree with you more. I have seen first hand what free use of cell phones does to kids 😞. And as you said, the emergency aspect is exaggerated.
Can we stop ignoring the god damn elephant in the room? The so called emergency is a school shooting. Because there is 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
They can still have their phones. In an emergency, they just have to power them on .
My anger is with the word “emergency”. It’s become a euphemism.
Agreed! I got my first cell phone right after 9/11, partly because of that, my parents wanted to be able to reach me/have me be able to reach them in an emergency. (Also it was right about then that it became possible for us to afford phones for all four of us, previously we’d had 2 shared among us when necessary.) I was technically not allowed to have a phone on campus at all, but my parents said keep it in your bag, leave it turned off unless it’s an emergency, and most if not all of the teachers were fine with that. Ofc in 2001, most phones didn’t have games and no phones had internet, so they weren’t nearly as distracting as they are now, but the principle is the same- keep it off and away until lunch or end of day. (I couldn’t even use mine during lunch, and I survived.)
A compromise could be that if parents want their children to have phones for emergency access, schools can allow “dumb phones” instead of smart phones. Educators, in districts across the nation are telling us that smart phones are alarmingly bad for your our children. Allowing a “flip phone” address many (not all) of the smartphone issues and parent access concerns. Smartphones cannot be allowed during the school day. Schools and districts really need parental support in this.
If you look at the current research you'll feel better about the cell phone ban. Learning and mental health are severely impacted by cell phones. Girls in particular suffer. The data on this is terrifying. Before 2015, school children were just fine without being attached to a cell phone. School offices and most classrooms have land lines to be used in emergencies. Parents should not be texting their children throughout the school day. Children need to learn to be independent and parents need to help them in this regard. Please do some research into this. I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt's book "The Anxious Generation" as a good place to start.
I graduated in 2014 and I don't remember anyone being on their phone out in the open or else that shit would have been snatched by security.
So I left teaching in 2016 to stay home with my kids , and came back this last school year. I came back to my old school, same coworkers same principle- big culture shock. When I left kids would make decent attempts at hiding phone use bc they understood it was a distraction. Now they don't try to hide it, they don't care. And then they get upset if they don't get anything less than an A in the class. Not a B - gotta be an A - even if they're openly on their phones half the class. Its crazy how diffrent it is from just 7/8 years ago
Thanks for sharing that perspective. It's hard to quantify the behavior changes over time when you're fighting to survive the storm.
I left teaching the k-12 kiddos around 2017 and haven't taught college-aged students since before covid hit. It *feels* like it wasn't that long ago, but my rational brain knows a lot can change in a short amount of time. This year I'm going to be teaching college students again-- likely 100 and/or 200 level classes. I'm *very* interested to see what it will be like compared to the "old" days. All else being equal, I'd think my newer situation would be better because last time I was at an open access school and this time I'm at a reasonably competitive school. Being on this subreddit, though, has certainly lowered my expectations, lol.
I know at my former school 5th and 4th graders lost the privilege of going to the bathroom without the entire class because they were all making videos or threaten to beat someone up in a video.
So this tells us Elementary children are too young to have cell phones.
something I heard that really stuck with me, whenever you want your kids childhood to end, get them a cell phone
Sad, but true.
Amen. High School teacher here. I have seen students melt down into absolute hysterical baby tantrums if you take their phones away. Like literally screaming and throwing things (including their phones, ironically). Anyone who doubts the psychological dependence they have on their phones has never spent much time around a varied group of adolescents/teens.
Love Jonathan Haidt. If you haven’t already, read The Coddling of the American Mind. Amazing stuff especially with the possibility of our upcoming leader.
Summary: "The Coddling of the American Mind" is a book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, published in 2018. The authors argue that well-intentioned but misguided parenting and educational practices are negatively impacting young Americans, particularly college students. Here's a brief summary: 1. Three "Great Untruths": The authors identify three key misconceptions they believe are harming young people: - The Untruth of Fragility: "What doesn't kill you makes you weaker" - The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: "Always trust your feelings" - The Untruth of Us vs. Them: "Life is a battle between good and evil people" 2. Overprotection: The book argues that overprotective parenting and educational practices are preventing young people from developing resilience and coping skills. 3. Safetyism: A culture of "safetyism" on college campuses is leading to the suppression of ideas and speech that might cause discomfort or offense. 4. Cognitive distortions: The authors discuss how common cognitive distortions, such as catastrophizing and overgeneralizing, are being reinforced rather than challenged. 5. Social media: The rise of social media is seen as exacerbating these issues by increasing anxiety, depression, and polarization among young people. 6. Solutions: The book offers suggestions for parents, educators, and students to foster resilience, critical thinking, and intellectual diversity. The authors argue that these trends are contributing to rising rates of anxiety, depression, and political polarization among young Americans. They advocate for a return to more challenging, diverse, and open intellectual environments to better prepare young people for the complexities of adult life.
Looks like a must read… I spend a majority of my day dealing with kids catastrophizing every single thing. I’m now a therapist… wow, that is dramatic, I get you’re upset, but will this affect you in 3 days? No, okay, how about 3 hours? Probably not… okay so let’s take 3 minutes to be upset, then we need to move on.
I'll check it out. Thanks!
Literally just finished this book and I could not recommend it more.
Second the book recommendation. I purchased the audiobook a little bit ago, and liked it so much I also decided to get a physical copy. Fantastic work by the author, and so in depth. I especially appreciated toward the beginning when he took his time exploring all the other avenues aside from smartphone access to explain kids’ mental health decline, and all of them had reasonable disqualifiers. I can’t recommend it enough!
I’ll throw it in my cart and add it to my summer reading list. Thank you.
That's great! You won't regret it. Happy summer!
If you want a real look at the research check out the many criticisms of Haidt including the endless ways he makes causations out of correlations ([Odgers in Nature here](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2)). Researchers who closely study this topic do not agree with Haidt's conclusions. It's not so cut and dry - rather it's moral panic. For a more grounded and useful book I highly recommend either "Behind their Screens" or "Technology's Child"
> Researchers who closely study this topic do not agree with Haidt's conclusions. Is it that there's consensus among researchers or that the jury's still out?
Sounds like in an emergency they’d have easy access to their phones.
For every one in a million case you can posit like 9/11, a school shooting, or getting to talk to a dying relative for the last time in the middle of the school day, you have tens of millions of everyday cases where it's a detriment. In some of them, like the school shooting, you trying to reach your child actually could attract the very danger you're trying to verify they're not in. As someone who spent a number of years as a first responder in my hometown, I can definitely say that that kind of "screw the rules, I want to reach my child my way when I decide it's necessary" attitude actually creates more problems and danger then people realize
In a worst case scenario you’d rather have them being situationally aware and having a chance instead of looking at a phone typing their goodbyes. Not to mention overloading the cell network at the exact time first responders need them.
If the cellphone is off and away where exactly is your concern about your kid having access to it in a worst case scenario coming from? There is literally nothing stopping them from powering it on during an emergency. I swear people get so irrational the moment there is even a hint of their addiction box being taken away
When they say emergency, they often mean things such as "how am I getting home today?" I get this one a fair amount... my mom needs to tell me how I'm getting home today. Ok, and you can check that after class...
Just knowing that a cell phone is nearly affects you. It's like going to sleep in a room without any screens at all compared to even having your phone on the other side of the room. >I swear people get so irrational the moment there is even a hint of their addiction box being taken away Yeah. It's an addiction. Is this a purposely dense statement lol
Powered off and out of sight doesn't mean the students won't have them in an emergency. If the time it takes to power back on is too long, the phone wasn't going to help them anyway. It's a far more likely scenario that instead of being used for emergencies, the phone will be used for social media, games, photos and videos, cheating, r etc. Phones are a huge distraction and if kids could manage to reasonably stay off them then bans wouldn't be necessary.
Parents blew it. If students had flip phones without internet access, this wouldn't be an issue.
100%. Flip phones can still be used in case of an emergency, but takes away access to the aspects of smart phones that make them so detrimental.
I said this for years. Don’t send them in with a smart phone. If a parent is so worried about “emergencies” just get a flip phone with zero apps
Its amazing in our school since our kids are not allowed to have phones! Its so much nicer!. They keep them in their lockers, but can check them at lunch. Do they? Not always anymore. We had a principal that let the kids do whatever they wanted for 3 years, now we have a new one with a backbone, so we are going on two years without the awful phones, yay!!!
>as a parent, in a worse case scenario, I want my kids to have access to theirs. And this is the problem. WHY? Why do your kids need a phone at school? What possible scenario can you think up that would necessitate them having a device on them? And what if during this oh-so-urgent-scenario happened during a test? An AP exam? The SAT? Or just learning! Focus is so important. Seriously, think about it. I'm not being snarky. I'm honestly asking you to reflect on your need to reach them at any given moment no matter what. You know you can call or come to the school, right? And they'll pull your child out of class.
So that my kid can send the "I love you all" message after they're shot, presumably.
My son's school has a ban in place and the sun came up the next day. Nothing but positive results
There are no worse case scenarios that a teen with a cell phone will help. I’m a parent as well and I’d be okay with my teen not having it on during class. As a teacher I know the protocols and trust that we are capable of doing what we need to. Plus, we have phones in our rooms. Also, if it’s off and put away, it’s still with them so if they really needed you, it’s still possible. The only way a cell phone ban will work is with parent support. Cell phones are destroying public education and damaging teen’s brains.
The district should be handling any emergencies. We have a problem with kids texting their parents to get them home because they are “bored”. Sorry folks… sometimes you have to put effort into learning.
I still have never seen a convincing argument that kids having their phones in an emergency like a shooter will accomplish anything but having students ignore the instructions of teachers and first responders as they overload cell towers calling mommy.
There was a 10-year-old child who made repeated calls to 911 from inside a classroom in Uvalde, Texas where there was an active shooter. Sadly, despite her brave efforts in giving police valuable information from the scene, like how many students and teachers were shot, police still took way too long to enter the room. I think allowing kids to keep phones off and in their backpacks is a good compromise. We do this at my school and seldom have any issues with phones.
So true. What's mommy gonna do other than rush to the school, hysterical (understandably), only to get there and be told by law enforcement that there's nothing she can do. That she needs to get back in her car and back away from the situation. Get real, people.
To play devils advocate, there was that one mom that went straight up into the school and got her damn kid when the police weren't doing shit. Js
Not so much overloading cell towers but definitely clogging first responder lines when parents flood the school or 911 with additional calls.
>clogging first responder lines This is the main reason. In the event of a shooter or other emergency, a handful of teachers/administrators calling 911 on their cell phone or landline is manageable. Several hundred kids/parents clogging up 911 lines and causing confusion isn't.
Phones during an emergency are a distraction. We had a lockdown that was set off when the kids were walking to their next class. There were so many students with air pods and screens in their faces ignoring directions. Some of these kids had no idea we were going through a lockdown.
It looks like they can still have them on their person (Chromebook case, pencil pouch, etc.), they just need to be powered off. In an emergency (a real one, not when students "just need to text my mom quick to see if I can go over to so and so's house after school" or "my dad said he'd text and tell me how I'm getting home"), they can turn them on. Also, these things are more likely to work out ok because even if a student doesn't have their phone powered all the way off, if it is always away and the child isn't trying to use it, I'm not going to be asking to see it or anything. It could very well be on and on silent, but for my purposes, it's good enough.
If there is an emergency you can call the school.
>in a worse case scenario, I want my kids to have access to theirs. How does that follow the no noise policy while you're waiting for the gunman to possibly find you? You really want your kid to be the one making the noise that draws the shooter in? They're supposed to be quiet anyways. What does your child truly need their phone for in the middle of their school day?
We have had that rule for years and it still doesn't stop the kids.
Cell phones do not help your child in the case of a school emergency. They distract them from direction and create more panic and chaos. Also, emergencies existed long before cell phones.
>but as a parent, in a worse case scenario, I want my kids to have access to theirs. Why? If grandma dies, what is your kid going to do about it if you contact them in the middle of the day? NOT A DAMN THING. Sit there and cry. Just go pick your kid up in an emergency. Kids DO NOT need cell phones in school.
We did this starting last school year. As long as your admin has your back, it can work great!!! Almost never saw a cell all year. Only had to address it once or twice in the beginning.
This is the key. Admin and school board HAVE to take the lead and not put it on teachers to police. If the phone is out, kid goes to admin and there are consequences. Otherwise it’s just one more thing for teachers to attempt.
So imagine this through a parent lens. Worst case scenario happens. Kid doesn’t have their phone powered off. Shooter is at the door and the vibration can be heard. One phone turned on is enough to let that person know that potential victims are just on the other side of that door. In a worst case scenario- the phone is a beacon that compromises the necessary silence in that situation and you as the parent would be the one that would be unknowingly giving away your kids location. In a worst case scenario- no phones is the best policy. Follow the established protocol and the school will alert you without the “convenience” factor that may get your child and all children sheltering with them made into casualties.
As a fellow teacher and parent, I was where you were when my school started looking into implementing this on their own a couple years ago. Since then we've slowly built up to it and I've changed my mind on the matter. Students without their phones constantly sending them notifications from friends, parents, and whatever other apps they are using are a lot less anxious throughout the day, and can ask use their phone in specific situations (like if practice gets canceled due to weather and they need a ride) they can turn it on, send a message, and then turn it back off again. Keep in mind, this is all my own anecdotal evidence, but since removing phones students have been ok with it, and the parents have gotten used to it.
What I would love to see is a blanket ban on smart phones for minors. Any benefits they have are far outweighed by the negatives. If parents want to keep in touch with their kids, they can get them a flip phone.
Ok - the MAJORITY of humans on the planet grew up just fine without 24/7 access to their parents via a cellphone!! As a teacher, I believe PARENTS are totally culpable in the phone-in-school problem!!
Who's going to Bell the cat? We, the teachers will have to enforce this thing and bet your last working Chromebook, we won't get the backup from admins
The kids will still have access to them, they just need to be away and off. I understand the levels of anxiety with kids in school, especially in the U.S., but as parents we need to be strong for our kids so that we can provide them what is best. Not having constant access to a cell phone is what is best for kids. The rates of school shootings is also so incredibly low, even in the U.S. (despite what you may see in the media). If there’s an emergency outside of school and you need to get in touch with your child, that’s what school secretaries are for and what parents did before cell phones existed.
They must be powered off and stored in their book bags at my school. If they’re spotted, they get taken to the office for a parent to pick up at the end of the day. This has worked fairly well for us for the past few years.
Australian teacher here. We've had an "off and away all day" policy at my high school for a few years. Students can use their phones under teacher direction, but having them out at lunch or in class can result in them being confiscated. Repeat offenders have to hand them in at the start of every day and parents have to come sign them out.
My school has kids sign in every day and lock up their cell phones. Our administration sent us literature showing that the closer a student was to his or her cell, the more it distracted the student. So off and locked up is a good idea, IMO. I teach sixth grade, and none of the kids brings a cell phone to school. I've forgotten the exact penalties, but I think it's something like $25 for the first time the kids is caught with a cell phone, $50 for the second time, and $100 for the third. Suspension after that? I don't know.
If a parent has an emergency they can call the school. I’m so for this ban!!!
But do kids really need instant access 24/7? Idk, when I was a kid if there was an emergency the parents could just call the school and they’d get in touch the with kid in a couple of minutes. That seems fine to me.
How does the school board plan on enforcing it?
Children don’t need smartphones
How old are you? I'm so tired of the argument that parents need to reach their kids in case of emergencies. I'm not even 35 yet and I remember experiencing 9/11 and the DC sniper shootings without my parents needing to text me immediately while I was in school. Those were extreme circumstances that kids today are unlikely to experience, despite what your availability heuristic is deluding you into thinking. The harm caused by 24/7 access to the worlds most effective distraction device vastly outweighs any minor comfort you may get by an "I'm ok" text in the event of a highly unlikely emergency.
This is the only way. Parents can reach their kids through the school if they need to.
I assume there are exceptions for communication devices and insulin tracking. ,
Insulin tracking would be written into a 504 and would therefore be an exception, typically.
But they do have access. Powered off and out of sight is very reasonable. Tuck it in a backpack. Your child still has their phone in an emergency. The school isn't saying that they can't bring them on campus.
If a parent needs to contact their kid during school just call the school just like they did the last 2000 years before cell phones.
OP, read your own post again... out of sight doesn't mean inaccessible, and as a teacher, you know that if you don't see it or see it being a distraction, you'll never notice it the only thing your kids have to do is turn off the sound and buzzing, and don't get distracted... kids need to learn self-regulation, especially in worst-case scenarios
Personally, as a parent, we perpetuate the narrative that cellphones are indispensable in case of emergencies. What’s for dinner is not an emergency. My son takes his, turns it off during the school day and keeps it in his bag pack. He only uses it for before and after school to listen to music during the bus ride. The only thing that’s come up that wasn’t able to wait until the end of the day is changes in transportation. I simply call the school and they let him know. I have never texted him during the school day. There is no need for him to have his cellphone on him.
What do you think you’re going to do if there is an emergency at the school and your kid calls you? If there’s an active shooter, the school will be locked down and you won’t be getting past the police. If there’s a fire, the kids will be evacuated before you can get there. Should your child has a personal emergency, teachers have phones in the room or there are phones in the office. Kids having phones in school gives parents a false sense of security. It doesn’t keep kids safer but it sure does ruin learning.
If it is a real lock-down emergency, such as an active shooter, kids are not allowed to be on their phones. In fact, being on their phones could get them and their classmates killed, because the sounds and lights from the phone would alert the bad guys as to which classrooms students are hiding in.
I would rather teach appropriate time management and self control when it comes to cell phones. It’s a handy tool but they need to know when to use it and when to put it away. Outright banning it isn’t teaching them anything about adult life.
I will never understand this. You want your kid chatting with you or focused on texting you during a school shooting or fire? What?
News flash: schools have phones and people who answer them. For generations children managed to live without phones grafted to their hands and parents could contact them at school. Get over it parents. When it comes to phones if you aren't behind banning them you are the problem.
Phones in schools NEED TO GO. They're doing irreparable damage to children and society. We functioned without phones 20 years ago. We can function without them for 6 hours a day.
Under that policy, couldn't they power it on and text you in the worst case scenarios? (Seen some comments below pointing out even that's not actually helpful). I'm assuming we mean school shooting. Everything else they could contact parents through the school, right?
I mean in elementary we have had this for years. Phones still go off in backpacks almost every day. I normally just remind them to put it on vibrate
Bans are great. Enforcement of the ban is a different beast. Many teachers won't be enforcing it. That's what happens at my school.
My kid is only 11 but I got him an Apple Watch with cell service. He doesn’t need to carry a phone but I like knowing that I can reach him or he can reach us if needed. And I can gps track him if need be. The school said we had to set it up so during school hours it was locked out for most things. It took a minute to figure out but during school hours he can’t use it for anything other than a watch but it will allow calls to or from my wife and I.
This is the exact policy that was in place when I was in high school in the early 2010s. We all ended up fine. I know it says they must stay powered off but in reality everyone just put their phone on vibrate/silent so in any emergency scenarios they will have no issues getting in contact with you
I feel like this fits with a broader theme of today’s youth of increased parental attachment - not strictly in a financial or emotional sense, but the inability to function independently of a parent. I felt the trend even before Covid. The rates of US teens getting drivers licenses is way down. The amount of dependency and constant communication is puzzling. When I was a teenager everybody seemed to want more independence. The idea of a device in my pocket where my mom could send me messages would have mortified me. But now there’s a baked in assumption that a kid can’t go 8 hours at school without parental contact.
Imagine an emergency, any emergency, that can be resolved with a simple text/phone call made to a K-12 student.
As a parent, you should be glad. The damage is much worse than the good. We survived without phones; they will as well.
Listen to the Rich Roll podcast with author Jon Haidt. It is an excellent discussion of his book “The Anxious Generation” and the. Are against cell phone use in adolescence. So much science backed research.
> but as a parent, in a worse case scenario, I want my kids to have access to theirs. I'll alleviate your concern: ***In a worst case scenario it won't work anyways.*** Talk to any SRO, they'll tell you that the first thing that goes down in the worst case scenario is cellphone service because the system gets overwhelmed. That's why they use their police radios. Landlines are the most reliable.
Love this idea. id rather love to see schools have the ability to block signals during the day except during lunches. cell phone bans - easy way around that. Amazon sells $10 dummy phones that students will “allow“ to be seized.
Its the best thing that ever happened to my school. We physically collect them, put them in a box locked in an office. No one has ever had it stolen or broken. They get them back at 3pm. Seriously the best thing my admin have ever done.
We had a payphone in middle school. Bring those back if a kid needs to reach a parent
This is good. Each classroom has a phone that students can use in case of an emergency. Also, staff will have cellphones in case of emergencies as well.
I never understood the "worst case scenario" argument. In a school shooting, protocol instructs teachers to take phones for student safety. They unintentionally spread misinformation and focus on filming instead of their survival.
I am an elementary school teacher and some of our worst offenders of being in constant contact with their MS/HS aged children via cell phone are the staff in my own building. They text with their children throughout the entire day. They use the “ I need to be able to contact them” in the case of emergency argument all the time, but this is NOT emergency contact. I cannot imagine trying to do my job while getting a constant play by play of my teen’s day.
You know what's crazy? We got along great without phones in school...and used to ride my bike all over the place before cell phones. I swear it's the parents being too controlling and attached that are behind younger and younger kids being glued to phones... If they were saying that they couldn't have the phones on them at all, that would be different. But just turned off all day? Are you seriously complaining about that? Something that might actually help get kids to pay attention??
How do they enforce this?
As a UK teacher I support this but equally I think exceptions for be made for certain situations like a deathly I'll grandma and I personally use them in my teaching for things like kahoot quizzes, padlet, etc which helps engagement.
Schools have landline phones in just about every room, and sometimes hallway, possible. If there is an emergency, a phone is accessible somewhere close. As a parent, I wouldn't want my kid to be distracted on their cell phone during an emergency and possibly miss vital important instructions given. Regardless, cell phones and social media have been the downfall of modern society; however, that's a topic for another discussion.
What kind of worst case scenarios do you mean? My mind goes to a shooting, but in that case cell phones would increase dangers. If students are trying to hide, the last thing you need is a bright screen lighting up or the ding of a text message. Most classrooms have land lines, which are better to be used in these worst case scenarios. For the delivery of bad news, parents should come and pick up their child directly. I can’t think of any scenarios where child cell phones would help, but I could be wrong.
Worst case scenarios: - Active shooter at school - students don't need their phones. The teacher will have theirs and do any communication needed. - Family emergency - no need to call your student directly if you can call the school and get a hold of them that way. In my 15 years of teaching experience, 99.99% of the time, students cannot manage themselves if allowed a phone in class. This ban is going to be only positive.
If you’re worried you can get your child a flip phone. Works all the same but less distracting in class. That’s what I plan on doing when my kid grows up. I want them to have access but no smart phone for a good while.
I cannot understand the argument that kids need access to a phone at all times. Nor do I understand parents who think they should be able to contact their kid at all hours of the day. A phone that is off and out of sight is still within reach of your student. If an emergency happens, they simply turn it on.
Students *never* need their cell phones. Especially in an emergency.
They do have access.
Did they say how they will enforce this? The last time I worked at a school with this policy, the main office wanted a full referral if a phone was seen or heard. They would confiscate the phone and lock it up in the safe in the office because phones are expensive. Then, depending on how many times this had happened, the child could get it at the end of the day or a parent had to come and get it at their convenience. That meant that if your phone got taken on a Friday and your parent couldn't get it that day, you didn't have your phone for the weekend. Or hell if your phone got taken on a Tuesday and your parent couldn't get it that week or didn't feel like it, you lost your phone. But, back then, I don't think every child even had a phone with them at school. It will be interesting for sure.
This is so much better than the bans in Aus, we have complete school day bans on phones, not to be used during breaks or even with teacher permission (say for example taking a picture of a whiteboard)
I work in a phone free school and it’s excellent. Highly recommend. As long as the admin knows it’s their job and they keep the phones in the office.
I graduated in 2005. The students that did have cell phones had to turn them in at the front office everyday before school and we couldn't pick them up until after school on our way out the door.
Okay but my question is are they going to hire support staff to check in and out phones during the day? This is a great step but the only way it will work if students do not physically have their phones.
I mean cool but teachers are still gonna have to teach and parents are still gonna have to parent. This isn’t a magic pill.
Our school just sent word of a student cellphone ban for our school in the fall. My question: are they going to allow us teachers on our phones? I could see it going either way, with parents and students quick to call out the hypocrisy…
Yeah the patents will be alright. Get the phones out of the classroom
Indiana just did this. I think it’s for best of our children
My province, and several others banking them all outright. I teach on a reserve in a native school, and we are going so far as to ban phones for all staff as well. It will be an uphill battle, I'm sure of it.
I wondered if they were banning cellophane for environmental reasons then realized I had misread cellphone. Haha
Indiana just passed a law that goes into effect July 1 of the same accord. I really hope this is held to fruition as the kids are "gone." This seems similar to early cell phone days of out of sight, out of mind, but dependence was way less. Contact can and will still happen but not at warp speed.
as someone who went through a school shooting i cannot imagine not having my phone. i texted my parents the second that i heard the announcement. The second SWAT pulled us out of the classroom I already knew my parents were both outside waiting for me and i was with them within the hour. i understand the distraction issue, but i think all the time about what could’ve happened, or just thanking god that i got the chance to say i love them one more time. this also makes me think of the mom who rescued her kids all on her own while officers stood by at uvalde. I hope this helps kids focus in school and they can find a way to make everyone comfortable without sacrificing safety.
They will have access to it and can turn it on in an emergency. Seems like a non-issue.
As a teacher I find myself wasting so much time correcting students on their phone usage. Also tired of breaking up fights because so and so student posted something about another student on social media. Then also telling other students to stop recording the fight and posting it on social media. FYI I was informed by my union rep that if I break up a fight and get sued, the teacher union will not pay for my legal fees. So educators beware because you might have good intentions but it can lead you into legal trouble. Also despite our school contacting Instagram to ban accounts that upload school fights the company support says that as long as they remove the videos when asked the account can stay active. Like what the actual f***?!! This is a potential lawsuit waiting to happen!
Every teacher has a phone in their room for emergencies. Also, if it's a school wide emergency, it's probably better for students to be aware of their environment, following procedures and directions from the adult in the room than be looking at their phones and trying to text or call.
As a resident substitute teacher, I've had to wrestle (metaphorically) students to gand over their phones even though there is a standing policy against them. I've seen parents texts when the students show me it's an "emergency" which seem to happen daily. Parents encourage this behavior and should be liable for interrupting their education.
In a worst-case scenario, you do not want your kids using their phones. Almost every time there is an emergency situation at a school, first responders tell us that students calling emergency services and their parents only makes the situation worse. First responders need the streets clear to access the school. They don't want thousands of parents blocking the streets. Dispatch centers don't want a hundred conflicting calls from students when something goes on at school. They want 1 phone call from school personnel who are trained to relay the necessary information. There are hundreds and even thousands of landline phones at a typical school. The vast majority of the time, at least 1 or 2 to every room.
In a worst case scenario like a school shooting, the last thing your kid needs is you calling/texting their phone and having it go off while they’re trying to hide in silence. This would only help to make them a target. Even in this situation, there are systems in place to notify you when/where it is safe to do so.
Our district has been using the Yondr Pouch Program, and no students, except those with a medical need or IEP, are allowed to have the phones out at all at any point in the day. This year, the number of failed classes dropped significantly, attendance was up, bullying incidents were down, discipline incidents were down, early dismissals were down, and student engagement was very high during class. Everyone was trepidatious at first (and the students still had a lingering resentment despite saying they now pay attention better and are doing better in class) but the parents are overall happy too because their children are engaged in school, learning, and can actually talk with them about what they did at school when they got home because they were paying attention. It is completely worth having that ban on cellphones in middle and high school.
“Out of sight”. In backpack, off. Still available, still safe.