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Can Public Schools Ban Cell Phones in Class?

Loulit01 said:
I think they can. Why would a student need a cell phone while class is in session?

I think schools can and should ban them. Yondr pouches work well for this.
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Yes, leave 'em in the locker.
What's the teacher for if the students have access to a calculator and Wikipedia?
 
This has become a HEATED topic on social media lately.

Schools are trying to do so and parents are pushing back hard and saying “nope - you can’t guarantee my child’s safety at school they’re going to have a way to call for help if they need it”

I think a reasonable compromise is that kids simply have to keep their phones put away during class time
 
Loulit01 said:
I think they can. Why would a student need a cell phone while class is in session?

I think schools can and should ban them. Yondr pouches work well for this.
Click to expand...

Of course they can, but when you have a system that isn’t accountable for student outcomes, why bother?
 

Cell Phone Jammers.

Wall mounted, tied to the building security system. In the even of a safety event when the lockdown system is activated the cell phone jammers are automatically turned off.

WW
 
NatMorton said:
Of course they can, but when you have a system that isn’t accountable for student outcomes, why bother?
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How do you make a system account for student outcomes? Here, in Canada, student PISA rankings are almost always in the top ten worldwide and I don't know of any 'accountability' mechanism.
How would you do it?
 
Grand Mal said:
How do you make a system account for student outcomes? Here, in Canada, student PISA rankings are almost always in the top ten worldwide and I don't know of any 'accountability' mechanism.
How would you do it?
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By giving parents meaningful school choice.
 
WorldWatcher said:
Cell Phone Jammers.

Wall mounted, tied to the building security system. In the even of a safety event when the lockdown system is activated the cell phone jammers are automatically turned off.

WW
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Problem solved.

All in favor of using technology to solve problems whenever possible and this is the best solution I’ve seen proposed.

Simple, effective and a middle ground that everyone should be able to agree on.
 
NatMorton said:
By giving parents meaningful school choice.
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Not sure what this means but it sounds like the voucher thing.
Do schools get to chose the students they accept?
 
Except cell phone jammers would mean the teachers couldn't receive possibly important messages on their phones.

When I was still in the teaching game and not every child had a phone, I would just grab them out of their hands and laugh when they whined.
 
Give the teachers wifi passwords and their phone can operate off the wifi vs. cellular signal?

But frankly, teachers shouldn’t be on their phones any differently than students.
 
Grand Mal said:
Not sure what this means but it sounds like the voucher thing.
Do schools get to chose the students they accept?
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Yes, vouchers are an example. So are public charter schools.

To your second question, it depends on the school and the public laws in that state. Here in MA, charters do not choose their students. When oversubscribed (and all are) they choose students via lottery.
 
BirdinHand said:
Problem solved.

All in favor of using technology to solve problems whenever possible and this is the best solution I’ve seen proposed.

Simple, effective and a middle ground that everyone should be able to agree on.
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Problem is that they aren't selective. That means that staff cell phones won't work either making it harder for administrators and security personnel to communicate.

IIRC certain cell phone frequency ranges are near Public Safety Radio Frequencies.

WW
 
BirdinHand said:
Give the teachers wifi passwords and their phone can operate off the wifi vs. cellular signal?

But frankly, teachers shouldn’t be on their phones any differently than students.
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Sure; I meant for emergencies rather than getting on with Wordle. Probably wouldn't stop the pupils hacking the wi-fi either.
 
How is this 'accountability'?
 
NatMorton said:
Of course they can, but when you have a system that isn’t accountable for student outcomes, why bother?
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You may be under the false illusion that it is the schools which are responsible for educating the students.

It is the parents' responsibility to see to it their kids are educated. The schools are simply there to facilitate that outcome.

In my city, every May one of the local media outlets run a story featuring the distraught parents who just found out their darling child is not graduating due to some deficiency. Every school district parent has direct access to their child's school records 24/7 (grades, homework assignments, attendance, transcripts, GPA, and email access to every teacher). Don't have a computer at home? The local librarians will be happy to hook you up!

You get out of an education what you put into it.
 
Yeah, sadly way too many kids have parents that don’t pay attention to what their kid does day to day.

Academics, technology usage, who their kids are friends with, etc.

It is unfortunate.
 
Admittedly I am only podcast-deep on this topic, but, my understanding is that the schools who have gone phone-free are seeing uniformly positive results.

I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt, for example, who makes a the case that getting rid of phones is good for the mental health of girls in particular, but also for general academic performance.

...Whatever rules a school may have in place against it, many studies have established that students check their phone a lot during class, and that they receive and send texts if they can get away with it. Their focus is often and easily derailed by interruptions from their devices. One study from 2016 found that 97 percent of college students said that they sometimes use their phones during class for non-educational purposes. Nearly 60 percent of students said that they spend more than 10 percent of class time on their phones, mostly texting. Many studies show that students who use their phones during class learn less and get lower grades. ​
​
You might be thinking that these are correlational findings; maybe the smarter students are just better able to resist temptation? Perhaps, but experiments using random assignment likewise show that using or just seeing a phone or receiving an alert causes students to underperform. ​
​
For example, consider this study, aptly titled “Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity.” The students involved in the study came into a lab and took tests that are commonly used to measure memory capacity and intelligence. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups, given the following instructions: (1) Put your phone on your desk, (2) leave it in your pocket or bag, or (3) leave it out in another room. None of these conditions involve active phone use—just the potential distraction of knowing your phone is there, with texts and social-media posts waiting. The results were clear: The closer the phone was to students’ awareness, the worse they performed on the tests. Even just having a phone in one’s pocket sapped students’ abilities...​
 
BirdinHand said:
But frankly, teachers shouldn’t be on their phones any differently than students.
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Wrong. You can push out emergency information on group texts that way.

One other option is that phones are secured in sleeves at the beginning of class.


I assume its too hard for a teacher just to rip the student a new one if they are caught playing on their phone?
 
"Can Public Schools Ban Cell Phones in Class?" Yes, and many school districts already have done so via varying methods to varying ends.

The reason is always the same, in a condition of education one of the biggest obstacles is distraction. That is a solid reason to reconsider kids using cell phones will in school, but the whole concept of restricting kids using the cell phones while in school falls apart the moment someone else walks in the door with an AR.
 
Yep.

I’d be ALL for saying no cell phones in school…but considering American kids get gunned down in their classrooms, we can’t cross the cell phone bridge until we can assure the safety of our kids when they go to school.

It’s quite sad.
 
Loulit01 said:
I think they can. Why would a student need a cell phone while class is in session?

I think schools can and should ban them. Yondr pouches work well for this.
Click to expand...

They should have a long time ago. It's a major reason I left teaching.
 
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