Results tagged “cellphonebaninschools”

Many parents of New York City schoolchildren are fed up wit the Department of Education's ban on cell phones inside schools. NYPD officers regularly show up at random schools with portable metal detectors and then confiscate phones along with other electronic devices. One parent said, "A knife is contraband. A gun is contraband. Drugs are contraband. To me, a phone should not be considered contraband." The ban goes back to 1987 and has been fought in recent years by a group of parents who unsuccessfully tried to sue to stop it. The DOE says that the policy is there because phones "inevitably disrupt the learning environment." Parents' next step may be taking the fight to City Council, in hopes of forcing the DOE to at least allow phones that could have a school-controlled sleep mode. Many say they still send their children to school with phones in case of an emergency, contraband or not. One parent told the SI Advance, "9/11 happened. People died. Why are they setting our kids up for something serious?"