school confiscates cell phone, lawyer dad is mad?

[MikeyPatriot]

[ QUOTE ]
right to bear arms in schools?

[/ QUOTE ]

R U RTRDD?

[mmcd]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Also, IMO, leaving a kid with no phone outside of school for a month poses an unnecessary safety risk.

[/ QUOTE ]

There was a time, in a galaxy far away, when there was no such thing as a cell phone.

[/ QUOTE ]


IIRC, they used to treat malaria with quinine, and it worked reasonably well. If I ever happen to catch it though, I'd probably go with antibiotics instead.

[Homer]

[ QUOTE ]
First off, are you a teacher? If not, I don't think you're qualified to make statements like students having cell phones = impossible to teach class.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I taught HS the last two years.

[ QUOTE ]
If kids are using phones in the middle of class, the cell phone is not the problem. The student is the problem. Maybe the teacher as well for not sending the kid to the office. Regardless, the student is a distraction and should be punished appropriately.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course, the student is the problem. But perhaps the student wouldn't be as much of a problem if he wasn't allowed to bring his cell phone to school. Teachers do send kids to the office. This can easily waste 5 minutes per day, since half the time the kid resists and you have to call security to have to kid removed from class (probably not true at every school, but was the case at mine). I have real issues with precious class time being wasted because of an object for which the problems far outweigh the benefits.

[ QUOTE ]
My school had two (luckily hoax) bomb threats called in. Kids that had cell phones on them were able to get their parents to come pick them up from where the school moved us to. An emergency situation like this is enough reason for me to allow a student to carry a phone on his or her person. And, in my opinion, a student's lunch period is their own time and they should be able to do with it as they please.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is a stretch. The school would be evacuated after a bomb threat, so the student would be in no immediate danger.

[ QUOTE ]
In the same vein, I think it's OK in case of a family emergency. The student should have the cell phone off in class, but he/she can check his messages in between class/at lunch. Because if we're arguing about distractions, a parent calling the school and that kid being pulled out of a class IS distracting. Especially if the kid is told some awful news and has to come back in to get his/her crap and is obviously upset.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand this. The parent can call the main office, who in turn calls the classroom. The teacher informs the student that the parent needs to get in touch with him and sends him to the office along with his belongings.

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm not emphasizing how much I agree with you that a student who disrupts class should be disciplined? I also don't agree with the notion that a ban on cell phones in school is going to somehow increase a student's concentration. If a kid is bored in math class, he still isn't going to pay attention because he doesn't have a cell phone to f around with. He's going to fall asleep or talk to his buddy or draw or stare at some girls. And he should be disciplined for it.

Ultimately, I think this all boils down to the fact that some kids lack any sort of respect for the teacher, the school, and other students. I think we can all agree on this?

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, we can all agree on this. The more I think about it, cell phone jammers are a long-term solution. That way kids could step outside during lunch to make a call or make calls during extenuating circumstances (such as bomb threats, etc).

[Miyogi]

I am a teacher and I agree with the other posters who have mentioned that many kids are not responsible enough to handle using cell phones properly. If a kid were to leave the cell phone in their bag and never use it (ie. have it to use after school) then no staff member at the school would ever know it was there, let alone try to take it from them. Having kids using the phones while at school but not in class does lead to them being used/going off in class. It is the same thing with mp3 players. The kids are allowed to use them during lunch but not allowed to have them out in class. However, I have to tell kids to put their headphones away and often argue with them about why they can't have them 2 or 3 times a week. Does this mean that there should be a school wide ban of cell phones or mp3 players, I'm not sure. However, allowing them to be used outside of classroom time causes a lot of wasted time and unnecessary conflicts in the classroom.

[MikeyPatriot]

[ QUOTE ]
My school had two (luckily hoax) bomb threats called in. Kids that had cell phones on them were able to get their parents to come pick them up from where the school moved us to. An emergency situation like this is enough reason for me to allow a student to carry a phone on his or her person. And, in my opinion, a student's lunch period is their own time and they should be able to do with it as they please.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is a stretch. The school would be evacuated after a bomb threat, so the student would be in no immediate danger.

[/ QUOTE ]

We were evacuated. Our HS had two campuses, and we were shipped over to the other one and sat in their gym. We weren't allowed to leave without a) proof of a key to our own car or b) your parents picking you up. Otherwise, we had to wait for the school/bus service to figure out how to route everyone. The first hoax was pulled during first period, and I didn't get back home until 5 PM (school got out at 3) because I didn't have a car or phone to call my parents, so I had to wait for a bus.

[Miyogi]

That is obviously a crappy situation for you to be in. However, I don't think that means students should be allowed to use cellphones on lunch etc. As I mentioned in my other post, there is no way for anyone to know if a student has a cellphone that is turned off and that stays in their pocket or bag.

[MikeyPatriot]

[ QUOTE ]
That is obviously a crappy situation for you to be in. However, I don't think that means students should be allowed to use cellphones on lunch etc. As I mentioned in my other post, there is no way for anyone to know if a student has a cellphone that is turned off and that stays in their pocket or bag.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's an easy way to deter that though. Anytime a phone goes off in class = detention. Maybe a warning for the first offense.

[Miyogi]

Found this article in the paper today. Doesn't really shed much new light into the discussion but might be of interest.

http://www.thestar.com/article/177052

The point I thought most interesting was students tipping the perpetrators off in case of a lockdown being a reason to ban cellphones in schools.

[Golden_Rhino]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The point is, there is a damn good reason NOT to allow cell phones at school... because the kids are obviously tempted to use them during class. It's interfering with teaching.

And letting them use between classes, at lunch, etc. is so retarded... it's blatantly obvious that this will lead to kids being late to class, not getting off the phones on time, etc., etc.

This is sofa king stupid.

Is there any good reason to allow cell phones other than the little brats "all have them and use them" now? One good reason?

[/ QUOTE ]

We should stop letting kids interact between class too because it causes students to show up late for class which is a huge distraction. And while we're at it, they shouldn't be reading any sort of controversial literature during their lunch/study halls because that might give them some bad ideas.

[/ QUOTE ]

You should probably know that I can tell when people evade a straight question and bring up a red herring.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think your question is very valid though.

You: Why do kids need to use cell phones?

Me: Why does it matter if they do?

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't really matter if we think they should be allowed to or not. The point is that the school says they can't have cell phones, then they shouldn't have cell phones. I volunteer at a high school and every time I'm in there I feel like chucking a phone out the window.

- Kids are late because of phone
- they try to hide the fact their texting
- they are taking pictures

There is not problem with keeping it in their backpack or pocket. Thing is that for it to be confiscated it has to be seen, so the kids know they are walking the line.

I know that most of you guys on here are idealistic 'damn the man' types. That's good, people under 30 should be idealistic. But take a step back from your first rebelliou impulse and realize that sometimes rules need to be followed, even if you think they are stupid. If nothing else, it teaches kids that things aren't necessarily always going to go their way.

[mflip]

Yeah I'm a HS senior now. I'd estimate 90% of the students in my school have a cell phone and carry it on them all day. Of course there are a few kids who sit in class and send 100 texts a day, so what? When they are texting they aren't talking to the people around them which makes texting LESS distracting than the kid in the back of the class who constantly talks to everyone around him. If the kid doesn't want to listen to the teacher and learn something while in class that's their choice. They'll either scrape by and actually learn very little and regret it later, fail and take the class over again, or else they are the kids who can get good marks doing nothing. If the teacher finds cell phones distracting then they can ask the student to put it away. If they don't, take the phone give it to them at the end of class.

Of course taking calls in class is a little different since the student is then making noise and disrupting the class. I've had teachers have their cell phones go off in class though and usually it's quite funny.

I really don't understand why this thread has gotten so big. Should students be using their phones during class, absolutely not. Is it really THAT big of a deal, nope.