school confiscates cell phone, lawyer dad is mad?

[Evan]

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Wtf possible reason do you need for a phone at school, I don't remember anyone ever having a valid reason for it

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I brought my cell phone to high school because I would often go to work or some friend's house after school

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Are you being sarcastic? I wouldn't ever think you were if you hadn't already told me that "telling your parents you're going to Kevin's house doesn't exempt you from the rules." I think my reasons are totally valid.

[DrewDevil]

I am a few years from having to deal with this [censored], but when my kid starts asking for a cell phone, I'll tell him that in an emergency, he can borrow someone else's, since every other 10-year-old will have one by then.

[jaffa]

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I am a few years from having to deal with this [censored], but when my kid starts asking for a cell phone, I'll tell him that in an emergency, he can borrow someone else's, since every other 10-year-old will have one by then.

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Obvious solution is to get him one of these:



He won't be getting that out in class to text his mates any time soon..

[mmcd]

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So if the kid brings smokes, drugs, guns, knives and booze the school can't seize them because it's his personal property?


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That's an absurd analogy. The school can take the phone, give the kid detention, suspend him, whatever. But when the parent, who paid for the phone and pays the bill, asks for it back, refusing to hand it over is well beyond the school's authority. Schools can determine what students can and can't do while they're in school (and, apparently, according to news reports I've seen over the last few years, the recent trend is for schools to try to regulate student conduct outside of school), but the school has no business interfering with what a child's parent chooses to do outside of school (including how they make use of their property).


And regarding the safety issue, I never said it was major risk, or puts the kid in grave danger or anything, I just said it was unnecessary risk.

If you're kid was going to the park/mall/movies/whatever, wouldn't you feel better if they had a phone with them?

[DrewDevil]

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So if the kid brings smokes, drugs, guns, knives and booze the school can't seize them because it's his personal property?


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That's an absurd analogy.

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No, it's not, it's taking property without 'due process' just like the cell phone. Should the school have to have a judicial hearing before confiscating personal property?

That is the absurd notion.

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The school can take the phone, give the kid detention, suspend him, whatever. But when the parent, who paid for the phone and pays the bill, asks for it back, refusing to hand it over is well beyond the school's authority.

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Not if the school has made a rule that the phone is being confiscated for 30 days. You're just wrong.

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And regarding the safety issue, I never said it was major risk, or puts the kid in grave danger or anything, I just said it was unnecessary risk.

If you're kid was going to the park/mall/movies/whatever, wouldn't you feel better if they had a phone with them?

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Yes, but that has zero, zip, zilch, NADA to do with why this kid lost his cell phone.

The 'cell phones are for safety/emergencies' argument is nothing but a red herring... that is not what these kids are using cell phones for and has nothing to do with why they want to have them in school.

[kibble420]

I graduated high school in '99 and we all got by just fine without cell phones. I tend to agree with the consensus that kids don't need cell phones, especially throughout the entire day. Why not teach kids to put down the electronics and go talk to their friends the old fashioned way, instead of texting hundreds of times times a day.

You need to be 16 to drive (or 17 or 18 in some places), why do 12 year olds need cell phones (sans emergency use)?

[James Boston]

3 unrelated thoughts on this

1) There really is no valid reason a kid should have a cell phone at school. Yes, I too find cell phones incredibly convenient, but I can think of no practical reason a HS student would need to make calls on a regular enough basis that the phone in the office wouldn't be sufficient.

2) I have noticed that kids that age have no concept of what merits an "important" call. One of my co-workers has a daughter who suffers from this. My co-worker will get 200 calls a day from her child over the most insignificant stuff. Giving kids like that a cell phone only makes things worse.

3) There are clearly exceptions to this rule, but people with lawyers for parents tend to suck at life in general.

[DrewDevil]

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I have noticed that kids that age and women of every age have no concept of what merits an "important" call.

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[Recliner]

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So if the kid brings smokes, drugs, guns, knives and booze the school can't seize them because it's his personal property?

School grounds are not public grounds where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

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The school doesn't seize them because they have not been granted any authority or power to do so. That's why schools will have uniformed police officers assigned to them. That way someone with the training and authority is there to handle the situation correctly and within the law.

You are correct that school grounds are considered to be public grounds so courts have upheld the school's/police right to search things like lockers with drug dogs. However, anything that you have in your possession such as a bag or pockets does have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That's why the drug dogs can only search the lockers, otherwise wouldn't it just be better to have all the students line up in the halls to have the dogs search them? Thank you Fourth Amendment!

I'm not against the kid getting punished for being disruptive with his cell phone, or being a douche bag. However I don't believe that the school seizing the phone is the correct, or lawful, thing for them to do. Give the kid a detention or suspend him, or use some other form of punishment that is within their authority, but they do not need to be trying to extend their power beyond what has been granted to them by our government, certainly not past what is allowed by the Fourth Amendment. Your constitutional rights do not disappear when you step through the doors of a public school and the school has no authority to seize personal property. Especially without due process.

Unless the phones are taken on sight, instead of when they are disruptive while learning is taking place, not during the time between classes, at lunch, or before and after school, no one is going to argue that he didn't do something disruptive and deserves reprimand. My issue is that the school has overstepped its bounds and is doing something illegal with the seizure of property and should not be allowed to continue to do so. They are wrong because of the punishment, not because they attempted to punish the kid.

[mmcd]

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Not if the school has made a rule that the phone is being confiscated for 30 days. You're just wrong.


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Some middle school's rule book has no more binding authority on a student's parent than the U.S. Coast Guard Academy's Honor Code has on me. So unless the town/county/state passed a LAW that allows the school to refuse to return the phone to the parent for a month, they have no right to hold it.