Parents in New York City are up in arms over the recent enforcement of an old cell phone restriction in high schools. Many schools allow cell phones but restrict usage to certain areas or times of the day. New York City restricts the phones all together. The restriction was in place for a long time but was rarely enforced. Students routinely brought and used cell phones at school. However, now New York City’s Major Bloomberg spoke out in support of the use of portable scanners in schools to aide in finding unauthorized objects. Since then, cell phones have been confiscated routinely and the ban has been more strongly enforced.
Parents in support of cell phones at school are furious. Similarly to the opinion I voice in this article, cell phones are often used by families to keep connected with each other while apart. Families may need to schedule rides, compare schedules and alter plans at the last minute and cell phones make that practical. Moreover, in an age when keeping our children off the streets and out of trouble has become critical, cell phones allow parents to monitor their children to a degree. Cell phones offer children an easy way to keep their parents apprised of their whereabouts. They are seen by many parents as a safety tool.
Many can understand the use of portable scanners to search for weapons and guns. But when the scanners reduce the safety and ability to communicate, instead of increasing these things they lose their effectiveness.
Some parents and the schools, themselves, take a different view. They believe the phones cause more problems than they solve. Students have used phones to make and receive phone calls in class, disrupting everyone around them. Students have been late to class thanks to phone calls. More concurringly, however, phones have been used to text message the answers to tests amongst classmates. Even more concerning, students who own picture phones have been known to snap photos of classmates in the locker room and share them among friends or even over the internet.
It is my opinion that a more balanced approach should be taken, such as the approach used by so many other cities around the country. In my son’s school, cell phones are allowed in book bags and lockers but not on students’ bodies. They are allowed to be used outside the school and after school hours but not during the school day. The school offers their office phone for all students during the day who need to make or receive phone calls and they are willing to pass along messages from parents if plan changes need to be relayed. This system works.
What is your opinion?