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The City Council voted, 46-2, to allow NYC public school students to bring cell phones to and from school - though not to use them during the day. The bill was meant to address concerns of parents and students who believe cell phones are critical to students' safety (see these tales of cell phone-less horror). City Councilman Lew Fidler who sponsored the bill said his 17-year-old son walks eight blocks for a bus and "We wouldn't dream of sending him to school without a cellphone. If he's going to be late, we want to know why."
The Mayor and Department of Education have noted the disruptive qualities of cell phones for many years, and recently cell phones have been confiscate during security screening. In May, a judge found that there is no constitutional right to bear cell phones and effectively upheld the ban. The DOE's Dina Paul Parks pointed out, “There’s nothing to prevent kids from bringing their cellphones to school now. The mayor has never said you can’t bring phones to and from school — you just can’t walk into the buildings with them. So I’m really at a loss to see what the legislation adds.”
The city is offering to create lockers outside the school for students to park their phones, but there are concerns: The lockers could cost 50 cents a day and the lockers would have clear (allegedly unbreakable) doors! Civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, who is appealing the judge's May ruling allowing the ban to continue, points out that $100/year for cell phone parking is a lot of money for many students and that kids might be targeted by bullies after they pick up their phones. And City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. said, "We're creating a generation of little prohibition smugglers now with this ridiculous policy. The priority is protecting the kids."
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Lockers outside the schools? That you have to pay for? That's ridiculous. Let them bring them in and force them to be turned off during the day. I remember getting a cell phone for the first time in 10th grade - it really was pretty necessary. I never had spare change for pay phones and especially with sports and staying after school to do work...I needed to call someone to pick me up all the time. There were penalties at my school for using it in class or having it go off, detention or having it taken away until the end of the day. Seemed fair enough to me.
I don't really mind if the students are carrying them. I don't think there's any harm in it. If they mandate that outside of an emergency they can't yap on them during school hours and have to have them on vibrate, eh, whats the big deal.
I will comment on the article link to the 'horror' stories of not having cell phones. I'm not old (late 20's) but we didn't even have them during my time in high school and we survived.
Sometimes I wonder how we're all not dead yet!
-Ph
Why is this so difficult to figure out:
1. Let kids take cell phones to and from school
2. The cell phones can be taken into the school but are not to be seen (no text messaging) nor heard (no ringing, no calls, no vibrating) during school hours.
3. If they are seen or heard, detention is the first-time penalty, followed by confiscation of the phone. (PERIOD). Kids will learn very quickly to turn off their phones as they walk into school.
How did parents and children along manage without cell phones in the 80s and 90s?
I think they should be seen, if this ban gets cut.
Put them on the desk, OFF.
So the teacher to see them OFF.
Between classes and after school, they can do what they want.
However, i really agree with [2]Ph, I didn't have a cell phone in HS. I survived. Buck up.
And, the kids don't want cell phones to chat with their parents. Parents could save alot on cell phone bills with ban.
I totally agree with all the above posters, that's the tack to take. I'm married to a NYC school teacher who also doesn't mind kids carrying phones to school as long as they are on silent and kept in the students' lockers. This 'new' policy really seems like overkill and a waste of everyone's time. If phones, ipods, etc. are in a students' backpack or lockers, I don't see the problem. There are plenty of policies in place to deal with disruptive students and items in the schools, so I don't see the need for extra rules, just enforce the policies that are already there. If a student disrupts a class with a phone or other electronic device, teacher's are well within in their rights to confiscate it.
#2: Yeah, it is a miracle we all managed to make it to adult hood without the benefits of mobile phones!
now "when i was in school" (etc.) i used the pay phone to let my folks know i'd be late. no big deal. i didn't need to talk to anyone else during the day (i was in school after all).
my guess is that the decision to "ban" and not just "force to turn off" was that the latter wasn't really going to be that effective.
it wouldn't be a problem if people could control themselves with their cell phones. this shouldn't have to be a legislative issue. turn 'em off - you've got voicemail after all. sheesh.
I teach fourth grade in the city. I've had kids' phones go off in class plenty of times -- and find them playing around with them all the time anyhow. Anyone who thinks A) that this is limited to high schoolers, B) that simply saying 'turn them off' will do anything at all and C) that useful detentions and even suspensions are feasible if something rings needs a better concept of a school system where there are plenty of occasions where students end up with no consequence for kicking each other in the head or stealing Nintendo DSes. I confiscate phones when this happens, obviously, but at least with the stronger ban, teachers have more of a leg to stand on.
And come on. These kids walk three or five blocks with all of their friends, and, despite teaching in one of the inarguably tougher areas in the city, I have not yet seen one of the seven hundred students at my school use a cellphone in an emergency situation. Not one.
This was a "Caving in" by the Legislators, And The Board of Ed. ! So now they want to create lockers for students to store there phones in outside of the school ? That's not going to work Because the whole point of this topic is "Full Access" ! If the child can't have that necessary access to the device then what reason would have for storing it in a locker outside of the building ? I imagine we'll be reading stories about students getting caught sneaking those phones into the building and creating some reasonable excuses as to why they can't leave the phones in those lockers . I see one excuse being, If they leave the phone in the lockers who will insure the phone is safe from thieves ? If an emergency should occur and the phone is outside of the building that will limited there ability to contact help . These and other excuses will play-out in school's all over the city, & Parents will trump those excuses ! If a Parent wants there child to have one, Then they need to either control the usage, OR make the child understand that it's not to be used for any other reason except for that of an emergency ! I've said this in the past and I will continue saying it . Cellphones have no business in school's period ! Posted by; "Still Not Amused"
As long as they don't use their phones in class, it's fine to have them in school. Unfortunately, it seems many do use their phones when they should be paying attention to the teacher. Something tells me that these distracted students will have plenty of time to use their phones when they're unemployed/underemployed adults.