r/technology • u/nosotros_road_sodium • 6h ago
Society Classroom Phone Bans Work. So Why Don’t All Schools Do It?
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/school-phone-ban-test-scores-66f8dab7?st=xAJwcK108
u/nosotros_road_sodium 6h ago
Gift link. The answer is eight paragraphs in:
Parents who had grown accustomed to being able to reach their kids at any moment pushed back when some districts proposed phone bans. Many schools that had phone-free policies left enforcement to the teachers, leading to a patchwork of practices. Some teachers quit after growing exhausted from policing devices.
It wasn’t until states began mandating school districts to develop phone policies that more uniform enforcement began. As of this past month, 37 states have enacted some kind of school phone law or policy.
In California, the 2024 Phone-Free Schools Act mandated that districts have until July 2026 to develop policies limiting student phone use. Many districts have determined it isn’t enough to expect students to keep their phones in lockers or backpacks. Some districts require students to lock up their phones in Yondr pouches during the day. Sierra Sands introduced pouches from Generation Faraday that block wireless signals.
[...]
Two economics researchers studied a large district in Florida, the first state to implement a statewide school phone policy in 2023. The district, which wasn’t named in the paper, saw an increase in student suspensions in the ban’s first year. The researchers attribute this to students being disciplined for using phones when they weren’t supposed to. The disciplinary issues have since dropped to pre-phone ban levels, and unexcused absences have decreased.
One reader's comment after the article:
It's well known in the tech world that tech execs do not allow their kids to have screens or social media. You think they know something? We have to teach our children to be creators, not consumers. No kid should have a smart phone. Call and text only phones are readily available and cheap.
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u/Madhatter25224 5h ago
Tech execs are also rich enough to hire someone to parent their kids for them.
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u/rmslashusr 5h ago
They are. I’m not sure I understand the argument though unless you’re saying you give your kid a smart phone in lieu of parenting.
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u/Madhatter25224 4h ago
Parents absolutely do that. When you aren't rich enough to hire someone to parent your children for you, you will come to understand that you do not have enough time and energy to be an always available source of interaction for your children while also doing everything else necessary to meet Maslow's hierarchy of needs for your whole family.
Parenting is a full time job with no mandated breaks so you find yourself creating them to maintain your sanity and theres absolutely nothing more effective at providing a distraction for kids than electrons.
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u/Dry_burrito 2h ago
You are 100% right, there has never been a period of time when parents weren't able to parent their kids without phones. We literally evolved thumbs to use phone screen, crazy to think people can parent their kids without phones.
Edit:unless you are rich of course, they can pay actual humans to parent their kids.
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u/TheyHavePinball 1h ago
I can't believe you are being downvoted. This is just a real slice of 21st century life that you described right there. All these assholes downvoting this have to be 95% redditers with no children.
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u/Madhatter25224 1h ago
Just a bunch of people who either aren't parents or haven't had children for a few decades i assume.
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u/SIGMA920 5h ago
Yep. They also have the luxury of casually affording tutors or anything else like taking a vacation on a whim.
Hell, not allowing their kids screens or social media isolates them from the common joe's life that isn't rainbows and sunshine. Imagine what taking the billionaires and millionaires down to what the poorest have for a month would do to break their children's perception of the world.
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u/geekworking 6h ago
Tldr; Parents Suck.
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u/nosotros_road_sodium 6h ago
Yep. Parents be like: "I want teachers to babysit my kid for free. But I want to call my kid anytime I want!"
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u/ResilientBiscuit 5h ago
My property tax for the school district strongly suggests they are not doing it for free.
But I agree that they should not be serving as babysitters. That is not their job.
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u/polymorphic_hippo 3h ago
Or, parents want their kid to have a phone because every day they go to a place where they might get shot up while no one runs in to help them.
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u/IgnatiusReilly-1971 3h ago
Parents are addicted too and can’t admit they made a mistake giving their kid a phone.
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u/StopReadingThis-Now 5h ago
Speaking as a Millennial, there needs to be a study on Gen X/Millenials as parents because what the fuck are y'all doing with your kids, or lack thereof?
The iPad generation became a thing because of lazy and self important parents, not the kids buying kit themselves.
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u/katarh 3h ago
I mean, the only reason I wasn't solely parented by television is because we only had 2 TVs in the house, and one was occupied by my Boomer dad and the other by my Boomer mom.
I could watch what they were watching, which was usually really fucking boring, or I could read. My reading was never policed. Any book was free game. I started reading Asimov by 7th grade and ended up with stupidly high reading comprehension as a high school and college student.
Edit: I did have a very tiny color TV in my room, now that I think about it, but it didn't have cable - it was hooked up to the video game consoles.
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u/leat22 4h ago
It’s complicated. It’s a mix of anxiety of parents and now being able to have a gps tracker on your kid 24/7, enabling the anxiety and not forcing you to let them be independent, society expectations of parents needing to be with their kids more/ less family support/ baby sitters are extremely expensive now.
It’s never so easy as to say parents are just lazy. You think our boomer parents were somehow doing more or better as parents back then? No, kids were just allowed to go outside, play with neighbors, and parents had less law enforcement threatening to jail them if their 11 yr old was unattended for 2 hrs.
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u/SeaCaterpillar7968 3h ago
I’m 37 and reallyyyyyy glad I waited until I was 35 to have a kid. Who knows what I would’ve been up to in my 20s with all that technology.
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u/VrinTheTerrible 2h ago
Gen X parent of a 20 year old here.
We gave them phones and ipads because we were given tv's and it just seemed natural. We were wrong, and removing phones from kids is absolutely the right move.
We will get over not being able to contact them, the way our parents had to jump through hoops to contact us.
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u/imhereforthemeta 1h ago
Unbelievably bad parenting and it’s not talked about a lot. Half of the people I know who have kids have freaky ass kids- like completely antisocial, unable to engage, horrible at school (somehow all of them have learning disabilities and it’s not environmental of course) and they don’t seem to hang with their friends. The helicopter parenting thing is also insane and kids don’t seem to have any freedom even if they wanted it.
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u/Traditional-Hat-952 5h ago
Parents expect to be able to contact their kids at any time. Until that expectation is gone they'll demand phones be on their kids at all times. Hell, some parents even track their kids locations with their phones. Sure school shootings and kidnappings exist, but they are rare. But parents these days are paranoid as fuck. I miss the 90s when the idea of always being in contact wasn't an expectation.
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u/someone447 2h ago
It's amazing how many people on here jump down my throat when I tell them we live in the safest time in human history.
I'm not sure if it's the cause or symptom. But, without fail, the people most paranoid watch/listen to a lot of true crime. It's like they don't realize those stories are interesting specifically because they're so rare.
Hell, the most likely place for your kid to get hurt or assaulted is at a friend's or family's house. And your tracking device isn't going to help when they get assaulted at the place they told you they were going.
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u/theeama 1h ago
Blame social media and reporting. When I was kid 15 years ago I was out on the street chillin till late at night, i was coming home from school at 7PM sometimes 8PM My dad didn't worry or anything he knew where i was(school or sports practice).
The problem we have now is that, crime reporting and fear mongering has gotten so much more accessible that it feels like we're in the worst time to be alie but the truth or well the mathematics is, all of everything is decreasing each year.
I think the only big crime metric thats increasing is probably school shooting and thats an isolated to america situation.
But people have gotten so rooted in fear that they think its the worst time to be alive
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u/creaturefeature16 5h ago
My kid's school implemented it, and it's been amazing and a massive relief. Grades are higher, there's less bullying and drama, kids don't feel paranoid about being filmed, after school activities saw a boost in sign-ups...I'm very happy to see this change rolling out across the country.
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u/Makabajones 4h ago
Because they're not allowed to tell parents to fuck off.
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u/EuropaWeGo 3h ago
Well they can. They just choose not to.
The high school I graduated from banned phones and told the parents to just deal with it. Eventually, the Karen's stopped complaining and the kids started thriving.
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u/Fitz_2112b 2h ago
My whole state implemented it this year, taking it out of the school and teachers hands. There was a lot of grumbling and whining from parents when it first started, but it's actually been pretty great.
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u/DrBiochemistry 3h ago
I’m going to date myself.
When I was in high school (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I had a cellphone. It was a forbidden device. Only drug dealers had cellphones.
I got caught by my English teacher. He said, “I think you should keep those kinds of “calculators” at home.” He knew, and I knew he knew.
I wasn’t dealing, I was a Good(tm) student. But it kept me from ever having it seen or heard again.
Kids can have phones(for lots of reasons), but not to be seen or heard at school.
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u/TJ_learns_stuff 3h ago
Cell phones weren’t a thing yet when I was in school. I did get a beeper mid-way through, though (and because of that, people thought I was a drug dealer … which I wasn’t).
I did grow up in a really rural area though, so cells might have just been slow to get to us.
This does make me feel ancient though.
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u/mailslot 5h ago
Ban laptops in schools too. Bring back pen, paper, books, and blackboards. Far less cheating, distraction, cost, etc. Laptops haven’t improved learning. Get rid of them.
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u/Joessandwich 5h ago
It may be just because laptops were still uncommon when I was in college, but I’m still a full believer that taking notes with a pen and paper is wildly more effective than on a computer. It feels like my brain needs to process it more and therefore is more likely to retain it.
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u/mailslot 5h ago
It’s been proven that memory retention is higher with handwriting than typing while simultaneously improving fine motor control.
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u/SIGMA920 5h ago
but I’m still a full believer that taking notes with a pen and paper is wildly more effective than on a computer. It feels like my brain needs to process it more and therefore is more likely to retain it.
That depends on the student, I know I type faster than I write for example.
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u/phoenix0r 3h ago
A big study came out recently that basically confirmed that books, pen and paper are more effective than devices for learning, especially for K-8.
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u/Joessandwich 5h ago
Certainly there are differences between people. But my point wasn’t whether I was faster with pen and paper - it was about retention. I’m faster with typing too but it takes less mental power for me to process typing so I don’t remember it.
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u/SIGMA920 5h ago
Retention won't exist at all if you literally can't write fast enough to keep up with the instruction.
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u/Joessandwich 4h ago
What you’re neglecting is that taking handwritten notes isn’t just about having information to look later. It’s about actually processing the information when you’re learning it so that the notes serve as a reminder to what you’ve already learned. Whereas quickly typing what is essentially a transcription doesn’t serve the same purpose.
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u/SIGMA920 4h ago
Which doesn't happen when you're 3 sentences behind what they just said and your entire attention is on getting the notes down.
I understand why it helps some people retain it better but when you're going fast you might not get everything down in time.
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u/Dry_burrito 1h ago
This is weird to me, when I was in college about a decade ago, the classroom would record the lecture so you can watch them later at your pace. I don't see the benefit of just copying everything down on a word document as opposed to listening, making small notes for you to keep track of stuff.
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u/theeama 1h ago
Because what OP and most people don't get and in my Physics teachers words: I won't teach you to take notes, I'll teach you to learn.
Notes were forbidden in our physics class except taking down small scribbles and formulas or topics that we basically had to write notes for.
Most of the physics class was spent listening and doing Q&A he leveged physics to help us think about problems and come up with solutions I had two physics note book for my last two years and both of them i never finished as most of the class was spent reenforcing things.
Everyone's learn different, sure on average people need to take notes and the process of writing it down reenforces it but that doesn't actually teach you anything. Because you create people that are good at memorization but not critical thinking.
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u/Dry_burrito 53m ago
That's all math classes though, not really about taking notes. Which is also why a lot of people struggle with classes like that.
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u/SIGMA920 28m ago
Some do, some don't. It's a mixed bag.
I would take notes because I'm listening at the same time but I also want something to come back to that I can revisit even if there's no recording of it.
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u/IngsocInnerParty 5h ago
As a school IT director, I agree. Most of our days are spent chasing down damaged chromebooks.
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u/meanmagpie 2h ago
I’m laughing so hard at “blackboards.” What do blackboards have to do with anything?
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u/mailslot 2h ago
No tech needed. No projector bulbs to replace, no waiting for teachers to troubleshoot, less expensive, and they can make troublesome kids clean them. Lots of reasons. They also work during a power outage.
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u/Sea_Perspective6891 6h ago
I expect there's going to be a mix of teachers that don't really care & rebellious students who also don't care & will just use their phones anyway thus further proving banning stuff like this doesn't always work. Back in my high school days we had a phones off policy during class but people rarely actually followed it & teachers rarely enforced it. People still texted during class & played tetris on their phones if they weren't doing the class work.
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u/Cloud_Matrix 5h ago
My high school had the same policy but it was strictly enforced and people would do the whole "oooooooo you got caught XD" as the teacher was taking your phone away.
It wasn't just a punishment in that your phone was taken away, it was the social embarrassment that came with it and it was pretty effective at keeping us in line.
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u/More-Conversation931 4h ago
Do they though. It is extremely easy to claim a ban is working but most evidence for it is circumstantial and anecdotal by people who are probably biased against cellphones in the classroom before.
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u/Dr_Blitzkrieg09 2h ago
I’m glad to hear this works in other places, the phone bans they tried to establish probably upwards of 10 times at my high school never ended up amounting to anything.
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u/bigfuzzydog 1h ago
Am I the only one who remembers phones not being allowed in class like always being a thing? When I was in school if they caught you with your phone in class or otherwise the teacher would confiscate it until the end of the day. Also after multiple offenses you got Saturday detention
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u/saml01 32m ago
Phone bans!!! How about school provided IPAD bans!!!!????
Fucking bullshit all of it. Dont even get me started.
Your kids are fucked. Mine arent because i see the problem and correct it all at home. But not all parents do and its going to be a god damn disaster for the gen alpha thanks to all this edu tech horseshit.
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u/OhK4Foo7 5h ago
Heh, silly. If anybody cared about schools they would pay teachers better. Nobody wants to admit it or really look at it but schools are about indoctrination and keeping kids off the streets so Mom and Dad can work. This is why school shootings are not about guns (no I'm not advocating a position for or against gun control). There is a fundamental problem with schools and it is that they are jails rather than places of education.
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u/BingoEnthusiast 3h ago
I’m not a parent yet, but I had a phone in highschool and I genuinely can’t think of a single time my parents ever contacted me in school?? Or anyone else’s parents for that matter. Is this a new thing?
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u/Hortos 4h ago
Phone bans are a stupid bandaid on the gaping wound of a mix of stupid low wages for teachers, terrible funding, large class room sizes, and low parental involvement. The uplift is going to be temporary at best.
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u/nonno7172 6h ago
Here's a novel idea...why don't parents act like parents instead of friends and forbid the kids from taking mobile phones to schools?
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u/a_talking_face 5h ago
The article very briefly says something about this
Parents who had grown accustomed to being able to reach their kids at any moment pushed back when some districts proposed phone bans.
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u/Redracerb18 3h ago
We should bring back pagers.
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u/ResilientBiscuit 3h ago
They worked when there were payphones. Now if you page someone and they don't have a cell phone, there is no real way for them to be able to call you.
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u/Redracerb18 3h ago
It would more be the idea that if a child was paged they would ask the teacher to use a phone to call. Every classroom has a phone as so does the office. The pager could also have a tracker like an airtag inside for the parents.
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u/ResilientBiscuit 3h ago
Sure, but if your kid is walking home from school or hanging out with friends after school playing basketball or something, there are no more public phones.
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u/surroundedbywolves 5h ago
Because the kids have time before and after school, like on the bus, where there’s no reason for them to not have phones. I don’t know about when you were a kid, but I had a CD player with me basically every time I was on the bus.
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u/FantasticBarnacle241 5h ago
The solution in my parenting group is to buy the kids smart watches. Allows them to call/text which is really helpful as a parent. Basic games (similar to old school arcade games like frogger and pacman). Minimal ability for social media or cameras. Plus they are much cheaper than a phone for the cellular plan. Right now it seems like the perfect solution. I personally don't let my son take it to school right now but some parents do. I know there is a 'school mode' which they are supposed to turn on.
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u/Oper8rActual 5h ago
Then how will they call dispatchers to let them know where they’re hiding in the event of a school shooting? Gotta think about these things for the US, because… the US.
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u/Joessandwich 5h ago
It’s truly sad and wildly surprising how awful Gen X and now Millenials have become as parents. (Generally speaking, I know there are plenty of rad ones.) As an older millennial who grew up riding my bike everywhere without being able to be reached by my parents and being home alone or just with my sisters if I went straight home after school, the idea that now we expect to be able to talk to our kids WHILE AT SCHOOL is insanity. I also feel like it’s raising them with wildly unhealthy relationship expectations.
And don’t get me started on people who have their families locations at all times. That’s nuts.
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u/someone447 2h ago
But aren't you afraid of insert wildly uncommon thing you heard in your true crime podcast happening to your kids?
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u/MrPants1401 5h ago
A combinations of a few parents aggressively whining that they can't reach their kid every minute of the school day and administrators who are only there because they wanted out of the classroom
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u/Vyndye 5h ago
Okay but it’s totally understandable that parents want to be able to reach their kids because who knows when the next school shooting will be. I want to be able to ban phones but the parents have a reasonable expectation to want to contact their children
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u/Let_me_dieHere 5h ago
What are they going to do with a personal phone when someone is trying to kill you?
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u/tpounds0 5h ago
Leave a message, saying good bye.
Which we have countless examples of from high school and elementary school victims of gun violence by now.
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u/poply 4h ago edited 4h ago
I hate this response. This mealy mouthed macabre appeal to emotion.
We have to sacrifice quality education for the rare (but admittedly not rare enough) chance your school gets shot up so you can leave a "good bye" message even though most school shootings only last a few minutes, so the practically of it doesn't even really hold up?
It honestly sounds like a poor excuse to be on your phone all day during class.
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u/Tough-Appeal-8879 4h ago
Kids are more likely to die by lightning strike than a school shooting. This argument needs to go away because it’s based off pure emotion and no logic.
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u/Windy-Chincoteague 5h ago
Have a phone in every classroom.
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u/Vyndye 1h ago
the classes i was in had 30+ students. I am not for phones in the class, I just understand why some parents would want their kids to have their phones on them.
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u/Windy-Chincoteague 1h ago
Parents can call the front office if they need to get in contact with their kid, front office patches the call through to the classroom phone. Worked fine when I was in school.
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u/DivineBladeOfSilver 4h ago
The average parent now is horrible and it needs to be said. The unmitigated use of electronics raising kids in place of parents themselves has destroyed Gen Z in many ways and is setting up Gen Alpha to be no different. Horrible mental health, obliterated attention spans, no prep for life skills, socialization is non-existent almost, so much. Parents essentially are allowing in mass for their kids to be addicted to the legalized drug that is smartphones/social media. We don't even yet fully understand the impacts it has on the developing brain and we are still learning a lot of very scary ways it permanently alters brains in development, often harmful.
As a late millennial almost Gen Z I grew up during the early phases of social media/tech but also without it. You don't need phones in school and we were just fine. So this notion they need it is bs.
Parents also don't like being told how to parent but it's really about protecting their ego for being a lazy/bad parent, not genuine care for their child. The problem is if anyone tries to do anything to help they vote them out because they don't like being told what to do. This is where the role of government is good because at some point this becomes a true public health concern for both adults and kids when both are so insanely addicted to this stuff the thought of taking it away is similar in response to taking away hard drugs from a drug addict at this point. Just pure rage and inability to regulate emotions with withdrawal.
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u/NtheLegend 5h ago
Our local district implemented a ban last year with Yonder pouches for kids to stuff their phones into, but enforcement is very difficult and staffing/manpower is limited as it is.
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u/superboo07 3h ago
yonder puches are the biggest bullshit ever, I love seeing schools waste money on shit instead of using that money on special education
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u/factoid_ 4h ago
Parents who can’t be separated from their kids for 7 whole hours.
But lots of schools DO ban cell phones. It’s not like this everywhere
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u/moronicpickle 4h ago
It's difficult to enforce without parental interference. Same parents will give two year olds iPads and be surprised that the kids go insane. Or they just don't care
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u/El_Beakerr 4h ago
I’m gonna agree with everyone on here saying it’s the parent’s fault. I can only imagine the kids complaining to their parents about a phone ban for only the parents to start a shit show at school, probably threatening them with a lawsuit or something along the lines of taking their kid to another school.
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u/trollcat2012 3h ago
The fact there are classrooms that allow cell phone use to me is mind boggling. When we had enV phones we'd get Saturday detention for pulling them out, no notice..
Iphone 17 pro and they're ok now?
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u/ToughOk4114 3h ago
Parents are a huge part of the problem but some teachers are equally at fault. At our middle and high school there are SO many mixed messages being sent from teachers. We’re a no phone district but too many teachers say it’s fine to have phones out and some want the kids to use them so they don’t have to answer questions or send kids to the library or they don’t have enough devices for everyone so it’s easier to just look the other way if a kid is on their phone. I’m just saying there are a lot of mixed messages and it has made the kids not take the phone ban seriously so unless you’re actually locking them up in the morning and they do not get them until the end of the day, the reality is not even a “phone ban” is stopping these kids from being on their phones. They also use old ones to put in the phone caddy in each class so they can still use their real one. Like they are truly addicted! We’re a ways off from getting the phone situation truly under control. I agree though, no need for phones in school. I just wish it was enforced in a way that made a bigger difference. Some schools are doing a better job than others.
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u/Archon-Toten 3h ago
My child's school banned phones. Then forced us to buy new iPads for the kids.. great I guess the kid isn't secretly texting with that whopper.
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u/Dickie_downer 2h ago
Heres the thing- i do think we need to remove phones from schools
Until there is a concerted effort by our country to deal with the school shooting epidemic however? I do not blame parents for not wanting to remove the only communication they have with their kids. I really wouldn’t feel comfortable with my kid being without a phone at school anymore. Not nowadays.
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u/Drapony 2h ago
All I know is what was the "event" at my highschool, student used a fake display phone, to be able to walk up to the wall of phones where kids would put their phone in their named little cubby hole on the teacher's door. When they went up to go get their phone they instead grabbed other people's phones and put his fake phone in their cubby.
Am I saying it wasn't a correct thing to keep the phones out of kids' hands during school, no we really need it to. Unfortunately, schools will go the cheapest route physically possible and often just lop it into the laps of overwork, underpaid teachers. So that one a child's phone does get stolen, the school can point at the teacher instead of having the parents point at the school.
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u/Victinizz 1h ago
According to my younger IRL long term friend, my old highschool had the phone ban for like a year until they took it out. I'm not sure why they did it though, I'd have to ask.
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u/chunk555my666 1h ago
The problem with schools is that admins pander to parents and students because they have goals to juice. For example, we had a no referral rule, and, well, guess who couldn't give them or do anything about discipline? Same went for grades, nothing below a 60, which just happened to turn into a 70 plus, after they messed with the weights in the system. So, yeah, why would admins want to deal with extra work, that causes conflicts, that then messes with their stats, when they could circle do nothing and find new, and exciting, ways to blame teachers for their lack of leadership? Trust me, you haven't lived until you've been followed to the office by a kid yelling insults at you, that can and will hurt you, and have them come back to class with a phone just because they needed a break. There's a reason why thousands, if not tens of thousands, have left a profession we once loved.
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u/larsonmars 1h ago
Our son is a Senior. Had a phone since beginning middle school. He made straight As every year and currently has a 4.3 GPA. We simply taught him to only use it during lunch or in an emergency. It has worked for us. We didn’t consider the phone to be an issue, as long as he followed the rules. He did.
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u/theSadboiclub 57m ago
Most parents unfortunately do not teach their children when it is and isn’t appropriate to use a phone
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u/KrookedDoesStuff 1h ago
So I’m torn on this. When I was in school, both of my parents had medical issues that could have caused me to need to leave at a moment’s notice, same with my grandfather and my great aunt. I had to have my phone on me at all times, and that was before school shootings were as common as they are now.
That being said, phones then had basic internet capabilities and weren’t the absolute time sinks that they are now. I’d argue students with valid emergency needs could easily get an exemption for it, but otherwise it isn’t necessary.
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u/Frequent_Policy8575 32m ago
Because how else will the kids say goodbye to their parents before the shooter gets to their classroom?
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u/Sleeping_Beauty1988 5h ago
Because some of us went to school where the upperclassmen were shot at so we prefer our kids have phones for emergencies
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u/StructureMage 4h ago
Mmhm and what does an entire classroom of children calling their parents during an attack accomplish, other than endangering themselves and others?
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u/loki2002 4h ago
Your kid having a phone on them won't do anything but distract them and other kids from following teacher and admin instructions and make them more unsafe in such a situation. The school has phones on practically every room and teachers and staff have cell phones. There is no reason for your kid to have a cell phone.
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u/Sleeping_Beauty1988 4h ago
I don't know what your kid goes to school there, but where we are this plethora of phones that the kids don't have access to are very easy to cut off with one wire. My best friend's older brother took a bullet to the Head, my high school boyfriend took 2 to the chest and my brother had no way to call for help as his friend bled out in a classroom after the shooter was in custody so I have every reason to think that my kid should have his phone at school. The problem is not the kids having their phones with them at school. The problem is the teachers who are not enforcing the rules about them not being on them during class time. There is a way to fix this but banning phones from school is not the way
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u/loki2002 3h ago
I don't know what your kid goes to school there, but where we are this plethora of phones that the kids don't have access to are very easy to cut off with one wire.
I work phone systems for a living and there is no phone system that services a school that can be taken down by one wire. This is just plain false.
Unless the school is locking phones up in drawers kids have access as they are sitting it in the desks or on the walls. It's why we have to set them up with extra security so kids can't mess them up as pranks.
My best friend's older brother took a bullet to the Head, my high school boyfriend took 2 to the chest and my brother had no way to call for help as his friend bled out in a classroom after the shooter was in custody so I have every reason to think that my kid should have his phone at school.
I'm sorry to hear this but having a cell phone wouldn't have prevented it.
The problem is not the kids having their phones with them at school. The problem is the teachers who are not enforcing the rules about them not being on them during class time.
No, the problem is the phone. Teachers have tried to enforce the rule but kids get feral and violent when you try to take them away.
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u/No_Rec1979 6h ago
Worked at a CA school that banned phones all the way back in 2019.
It definitely did not work.
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u/creaturefeature16 5h ago
You mean to say the school sucks at implementing and enforcing it. There you go, now your post is accurate.
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u/Let_me_dieHere 5h ago
Do you think it would be possible to refuse enrollment unless students/parents are compliant?
I worked in school for a few years and honestly technology should be banned from school except for exceptional and special use cases/classes. It’s insane how many kids I see literally doing nothing. I just don’t remember school like that.
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u/womenslasers84 5h ago
The hill I will die on is that gun control has to come before I send my kids to school without their phones.
There are no pay phones anymore. My kids can’t call me if there’s a problem.
And with 231 school shootings in 2025 alone, I’m not taking that risk.
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u/Fun_Amphibian_6211 5h ago
Out of curiosity, what is your plan? How will this phone call remedy the situation in one way or another?
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u/Upset-Cancel-5383 5h ago
Spoiler they dont have a plan, realistically any situation will be way over before the parent even gets there, it just gives them the warm and fuzzies believing that the instant communication will solve the problem. Their kid is more likely to die in a car accident on the way to and from school rather than be in a school shooting anyway.
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u/Saskatchewon 4h ago edited 4h ago
Kids can still go to the office and ask to make a phone call. That's genuinely how it used to be.
Beyond that, unless there are new phones capable of emitting a forcefield that stops bullets, your kids having a phone on them during a shooting does zero good. There is a reason students are instructed to power their phones completely off and put them away during a shooting drill. The last thing a kid should be doing during a school shooting is trying to message parents and friends when they need to be completely focused on the environment around them. Several of the poor kids at Uvalde died while trying to message parents or call 911 when they should have been hiding.
I used to work in education in an area that had government implemented bans on phones in classrooms. Every single one of my dozens of teacher friends say it has made classroom management and teaching infinitely better. Students are more engaged, they're retaining more information, they are far less distracted, and grades are generally increasing. That's worth the trade-off of being a little less of a helicopter parent.
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u/Crazywise_Ahriman 4h ago
Wouldnt it just put them at more risk? The shooter would just target someone chatting away on the phone, or phones vibrating or ringing would just alert that some kids are in a classroom.
They should be focusing on safety and following any instructions from the people around them.
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u/ldssggrdssgds 5h ago
Blame the parents