My School District Is Basically Banning Cell Phones
At least, for kids in elementary school and middle school. High school? Different story.
In August, my school district sent an email titled “Update Regarding Cell Phone Policy,” in which they outlined a new approach to kids bringing phones to school.
In short, middle school students are no longer allowed to carry them around during the day, instead “silenced and stored” in a locker. Elementary school students have the same requirement, except they could be stored in a cubby or backpack. There are, of course, exceptions for students who may need the devices for medical purposes.
Our high school issued a softer version of this policy, leaving it up to teachers to enforce on a class-by-class basis. I have thoughts on that approach. We’ll get there.
(Side note: Is “cubby” just a U.S. thing? Do people use that term elsewhere?)
As I’ve written about before, my nine-year-old does have a “phone,” but she treats it like a tiny tablet. There’s no data. She can’t make calls. But she likes taking pictures, and when she hangs out with older kids (which is often), it helps her fit into the group.
Ideally, I wouldn’t give my kid a phone until high school. The direction most parents seem to go in these days, though, is middle school. I’ve made peace with this, even though I keep telling my nine-year-old that in middle school, she’ll just get a watch.
(Access to a phone, however, is not access to social networks. Different thing imo!!)
Most of my concern, though, was over the lack of a reasonable cell phone policy at school. At least, what I personally think would be a “reasonable” cell phone policy.
It’s a question of harm and risk assessment, right? It’s entirely “reasonable” to wish a child had access to a cell phone in the event of, say, a school shooting. Being able to talk with your child as soon as humanly possible during an event seems assuring. But…
[deep breath, knowing both of my children participate in active shooter school drills]
I think it’s far more likely my child is harmed by full access to a dopamine machine.
Put the phones away during school. You can have them back when school is over.
If you’re giving your kid a phone, are you also going to be the parent who says “you can’t bring it to school”? Maybe! To be clear, I do not think that is unreasonable, but it puts you in the spot of being the bad guy with your kid. Being a parent is, obviously, a role in which you are frequently the (reasonable) bad guy but there’s a better way here.
This feels like a decision to be made by schools, not parents.
Regardless of where you fall in this debate, a universal policy is best. It’s better for parents, teachers, students. If you let the cell phones in, fine. If you don’t, okay. But it adds unnecessary stress for everyone when every student is being treated differently.
Rules like this are contentious for good reason. Cell phones are important devices in all of our lives, serving functions beyond algorithmic slop. Often, policies like this one are conflated with—on purpose—other policies meant to restrict children’s access to “inappropriate” material. What one deems “inappropriate” is depends on where you live and the political leanings of your school. Is LGTBQIA content “inapproprirate”?
Depressingly, it depends on who you ask lately.
Those policies are, frequently, bullshit. Children deserve respect and privacy online, and it’s possible to help kids navigate these spaces without taking away their rights.
Putting a phone away during the school day, at least in my eyes, isn’t that. It’s a middle ground. It’s a balance between their usefulness and their exploitative nature.
That’s where I ended up, and makes me feel better about middle school in a few years.
What are the policies like at your school?
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Also:
If you are a parent who sends their kid to school with a phone, please chime in with your reasons why! Let’s try to remain respectful in the comments about this.
Curious to hear how other schools have handled this. It feels like education has been years behind coming up with policies, right as AI is making other waves.
My high school’s policy seems like the worst. Asking kids to voluntarily give up the phones for a class period? C’mon. I was in high school. Who's gonna do it?
I was a HS teacher 10 yrs ago and my wife still works as a HS teacher. A lot of teachers were begging for this kind of policy at the county/district level 10 years ago for the exact reason you cite - teachers really have very little direct punitive authority. My wife's current school has a similar policy to the one you write about. She uses an adapted hanging calculator pouch. She says most students do comply, and reckons that because they're able to see it on the wall and see others abiding that they are fine with the policy.
I'm in the UK. The secondary school (age 11-16) that my two oldest children go to have made a zero tolerance policy on phones - no using them during the school day at all, or they get automatic detention. This seems to have worked out really well, since it makes the children focus better on what they are meant to be there for (I'm assuming that the constant distractions from the internet is what drove this).
However, you mentioned something that we never think about in the UK - shooter drills. The fact that in the US you can mention "school" and "shooter" in the same sentence frankly horrifies me. In those cases it does sound like children having access to a phone for emergency use seems reasonable. I don't know enough about the school lifestyle in the US to comment further though.