Banning cellphones in schools gains popularity in red and blue states
Banning cellphones in schools gains popularity in red and blue states
Efforts to ban students' cellphones at school is gaining rare bipartisan consensus in Republican and Democrat-led states.
Summary
Cellphone bans in schools are gaining bipartisan momentum, with at least eight states, including California, Florida, and Virginia, enacting restrictions to combat classroom distractions and protect children’s mental health.
Governors from both parties, such as Arkansas' Sarah Huckabee Sanders and California's Gavin Newsom, support these measures, citing benefits of phone-free school days.
While some parents oppose bans, citing emergencies and transportation needs, proponents argue phones disrupt learning and may pose risks during crises.
States differ on implementation, from outright bans to district-level policies or funding for phone storage solutions.
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I have several friends who teach at middle- and high-school grade levels, and they all tell me the same thing: There aren't really clear rules in place governing cell phone use during class so kids are just fucking around with them all day, and even where the rules are clear, they have no authority to actually take a cell phone from a kid, even if they're being disruptive to the rest of the students.
On the other hand, an all-out ban (and even "phone storage solutions") just creates a new problem; keeping a potentially life-saving tool out of the hands of students in emergency situations.
I'm almost certainly over-simplifying this, but why not:
- Let the kids keep their phones
- Set forth strict guidelines for their use while on school property, and
- Ensure teachers have the authority to enforce those guidelines.
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2 & 3 are not a solution, it's just ignoring the problem. You think teachers will ever do any teaching if they spend their whole day playing phone police? Unfortunately we have to counteract decades of festering phone addiction and kids are going to have to go cold turkey at some point. The storage solutions are silly but honestly that's the only way you'll actually get kids to put their phone away, put it in a locked Faraday bag. And the emergency reasoning is bogus. The teacher has a phone, an intercom, and a panic button. Having 30 kids call 911 while simultaneously making a ~tik tok~ rednote about it is not emergency response.
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You think teachers will ever do any teaching if they spend their whole day playing phone police?
Assuming they're struggling to get any teaching done while there are no rules in place, this still seems like a step in the right direction to me. But to answer your question, I suppose that depends on what the rules are, and how they're enforced. One infraction could mean your phone is taken away for the rest of the day, or until a parent comes to get it -- For example. The biggest problem I see with this approach would be that it foists a lot of liability onto the teacher -- As in, if there were an emergency situation for the student following the teacher taking their phone away, perhaps the teacher could be held liable in some way. Then again, I think this comes down to the administrative staff having a very clearly defined policy in place.
And the emergency reasoning is bogus. The teacher has a phone, an intercom, and a panic button.
And if the teacher is subdued? Or if the emergency takes place on school grounds, but outside of the classroom? Etc.
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And if the teacher is subdued? Or if the emergency takes place on school grounds, but outside of the classroom? Etc.
There are many adults in any school and it's not like the police will do much anyway :(
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Right, why stop at banning cell phones when you can ban emergency services altogether?
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That is just ridiculous. Emergency services never enter any school, so they can't disrupt any classes! And IF they do, and that is a pretty fucking big if, I agree with you, we should definitely ban emergency services! And after that we should ban the schools! That's where all these shootings are happening! Shootings are of cource a natural occurrence might as well try to stop the weather, but schools? A waste of taxpayer money I say, ban them all! And why stop there? We should ban these so called homes as well, that is where home schooling happens! And the vast majority of shootings happens in the home, and combined with these volatile schools it's clearly completely unsafe. Good call, I think we just solved it.
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As an elder millennial I struggle to see the problem honestly. When cell phones first came out and teenagers started getting them when I was in high school, the policy was you could have the phone in your bag, but if the teacher saw it during class they would take it away and your parents would have to come get it at the end of the day.
I am not sure when schools started allowing phones to be a free for all, but going back to the original phone rules I had seems like the easiest solution no? Kids still have the phones in case of emergency, but they cannot use them during class. Is the concern about the confrontation of taking the phone from the kids? That's the only argument I can see, but if they resist, send them out! I'm genuinely confused here.
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This is what I was advocating for, with the additional caveat of the admin doing their part.
My friend who teaches at a local high school told me about at least two instances where parents berated her when they came to retrieve the phone, and having no backing from the school administration. It's easy to imagine that, at some point, it's not worth it to enforce rules if you're just going to get screamed at for it.
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