mensetmanusman
11 hours ago
Banning phones from school as the default should have been included.
imgabe
11 hours ago
I don't know why this is hard. At least in the classroom if not during the entire school day.
You get a cabinet with a bunch of cubbie holes, kids put their phone in at the beginning of class, they take it out at the end of class. They can even lock and each kid takes a key with them if theft is a concern. It doesn't seem that complicated. They have these things outside every SCIF. I know they exist.
spondylosaurus
11 hours ago
I'm young enough that smartphones were just hitting the market when I was in high school, but old enough that using your phone in class was still totally verboten. (We all tried to skirt the rules[1], of course, but we knew the rules were unambiguously a thing, and knew there'd be consequences if we got caught.[2]) And for the most part, teachers didn't have to implement any special solutions; we kept them on us at all times, and if a teacher heard/saw your phone, they were liable to take it for the class or for the day.
So the current situation with out-of-control phone use in schools is interesting/puzzling to me, because clearly something's changed since then—but I don't think "better smartphones" are the differentiating factor here. Something's shifted with how schools enforce (or don't enforce) these policies, or with kids' relationship to their phones (and believe me, I was plenty hooked on mine back then too :P), or something else entirely.
It's also puzzling when people argue that smartphones have opened a Pandora's box that makes it impossible to control student behavior—because I know firsthand that that's not true!
[1] I think the threat of punishment also forced us to be relatively discreet about it. If you're texting in class, you have your phone on silent, brightness all the way down, barely sticking out of your bag...
[2] Some teachers admittedly gave more of a shit than others, but I rarely saw students taking advantage of that in a disruptive way—the most blatant thing you'd see is a kid listening to music on headphones during art class or something. I might've been the biggest offender in that regard, because I would occasionally bust out a Wiimote and N64 emulator to play Mario 64 on my phone, but I knew when I could get away with that and when I couldn't.
sn9
4 hours ago
Students have gotten smartphones at younger and younger ages since you were in school.
They got addicted to the dopamine feedback loop smartphones provide when their brains were even further undeveloped and don't remember a time before that so this is their norm.
Parents have thrown up their hands and given up, pretending that it's impossible to avoid buying their kids expensive super computers engineered to steal the attention of their users rather than just buying their kids dumb Nokia bricks and letting them learn to be bored and cultivate the ability to direct their attention and concentration.
giantg2
3 hours ago
"Something's shifted with how schools enforce (or don't enforce) these policies"
This is it. The other parts are tangential to the true cause.
usefulcat
9 hours ago
> I'm young enough that smartphones were just hitting the market when I was in high school, but old enough that using your phone in class was still totally verboten.
When you were in high school, none of your teachers had grown up with smartphones. Today, many have, maybe even a majority depending on the teacher demographics at a particular school.
Not saying this is the entire explanation, or exactly what it might explain, but it seems likely to at least be related somehow.
1_1xdev1
10 hours ago
Punishment is effectively not allowed at many schools because parents suck.
Kids complain to parents.
Parents complain to teacher. Teacher tells parent to pound sand. Parent complains to administration about unfair teacher. Administration takes a “customer is _always_ right” mindset for various reasons, and teacher told to not enforce. Or the rule is changed.
Some parents refuse to allow their child to do anything wrong (by moving the goalposts of “wrong”, assuming their child is always right, etc), some have anxiety if they can’t reach their child instantly via text, some parents refuse to enforce rules they don’t understand or agree with.
juunpp
10 hours ago
Oh, but my child is the best!
Have you ever gotten into that situation, as a kid, where you argued with an adult about how stupid their kid was? That's the summum of the situation you just described. Good times.
mindslight
9 hours ago
Prohibit phones in AP classes, allow phones in the GA or remedial classes. If a parent complains about their kid having to put away their phone, then they can switch classes to be with the rest of the distracted kids. Normally you'd be wary about creating this kind of segregation, but with the loss of effective intelligence from being tethered to a surveillance industry terminal, this arrangement would likely end up expanding access to AP classes.
Ccecil
9 hours ago
A tech high school machining instructor I know does this and that is how he takes attendance.
Almost every kid has a phone...if the phone isn't in the cubby they aren't counted as being there. Cabinet locked at beginning of class.
There are only 2 students out of his entire year that don't have a phone and he makes allowances for them.
amalcon
10 hours ago
It's hard because the parents object. They want to be able to directly reach their children in the event of an emergency.
falcolas
10 hours ago
My own experience with nieces nephews and niblings agrees that it's pretty much this. It's more about the parents' wishes than the children's demands.
Phones are powerful tools. Ideally kids would learn how to use them properly while respecting their sharp edges. Ya know, more work for teachers on budgets that are already under attack and such.
31337Logic
10 hours ago
I'm sorry but no. There is no emergency I can think of that either can't wait till lunch (or end of class, whenever the kids are allowed to check), or else calling the school office directly (remember those?), or even just showing up to the school to pickup their kid in person.
By the way, most parents I speak to would love to have their kids off their phones and focusing on school during the day. This whole "parents, emergency" argument seems highly suspicious to me.
haunter
10 hours ago
They want to say their last words when the next mass shooting happens in a week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...
sn9
4 hours ago
You can do that on a dumb Nokia brick.
Solutions exist for those who care to look.
falcolas
10 hours ago
> There is no emergency I can think of that either can't wait till lunch
Respectfully, most parents I've met do not agree with you. And I don't think that the random events like school shootings and bomb threats have helped them relax into the same environment we had in the 90's.
ericd
10 hours ago
I guess we’ll see if that’s representative, there’s a clear backlash, so at least a significant proportion don’t agree, and don’t appreciate the disruption and peer pressure dynamics this creates.
I’m certainly in the camp of personal devices having no place outside of a backpack. We shouldn’t let our anxiety run things.
sn9
4 hours ago
What are they gonna do? Blow up their kids phone in the middle of a shooting, risking the shooter discovering their kid's location if the phone isn't on silent?
What does this actually accomplish that improves kids' safety?
Especially when to satisfy their anxiety, they give their kids expensive electronics that drastically increase their risk for depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, disordered eating, executive dysfunction, etc.?
Vegenoid
9 hours ago
If there is an emergency, a parent can deal with it the same way they would have 20 years ago: call the school, and they will send someone to grab your kid from the classroom. This was not a particularly rare occurrence when I was in school.
The parent has to talk to the school on the phone to release their kid from class anyway.
loeg
10 hours ago
There are many parents with different preferences than you.
eesmith
10 hours ago
Yes. Quoting https://www.businessinsider.com/high-school-teacher-all-scho... :
> In talking to teachers across the country, the reasons phone policies don't work or are not implemented center on three main issues: safety (parents want their children to be reachable, especially during our era of heightened school violence), liability (phones are expensive, and in some districts, teachers have been held liable when they confiscated a phone the student later claimed was damaged), and lack of clear, consistent policy support (it can be difficult to rally an entire staff around a policy, maintain energy for its consistent enforcement, and make sure the work of its enforcement is upheld equitably).
scarface_74
11 hours ago
So if a child says they don’t have a phone are you going to search them?
But you don’t even have to take the phone out of the possession of the student.
They use these at some phone free concerts.
lovecg
11 hours ago
> So if a child says they don’t have a phone are you going to search them?
If a child says they don’t have any cigarettes or a knife etc. etc. are you going to search them?
Most kids follow the rules. A few troublemakers with phones won’t make a difference and can be easily handled by existing disciplinary actions.
scarface_74
10 hours ago
You don’t have kids do you?
Just as a proxy, weee use is against the rules by definition for middle and high schoolers
lovecg
10 hours ago
I do, do you? I also used to be a kid myself. What does lifetime use have to do with smoking _on school property_?
scarface_74
2 hours ago
So you think kids “follow the rules” and “say no to drugs”, don’t engage in underaged drinking, don’t lie and say they are over 18 to view porn etc?
lovecg
38 minutes ago
Of course not. This is not some rhetorical gotcha you think it is, there’s a huge difference between rules like “don’t use a phone in class” and “don’t drink alcohol ever in your life anywhere”.
TheCoreh
11 hours ago
You don't have to search the students. Or even put the phones in a locker. You just make the rules about them known, and if students are found using a phone during class, they can just be punished with detention/suspension.
I don't understand why this is hard to enforce, or requires special laws. We had rules about not using (feature) phones back when I was in middle school (~2002), and you just kept your phone in your backpack/pocket until the class was over. It worked.
coryrc
10 hours ago
In Seattle they won't even expel students committing violent crimes in schools. There's no punishment available for any behavior.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/student-discipline-are-...
If someone brandished a knife at my workplace they would be immediately fired, never to return. At SPS that's just a stern talkin' to.
thfuran
10 hours ago
That's weird. I've mostly heard about the opposite at schools, like someone getting reamed for bringing cake and a plastic knife to cut it. But I guess that was probably over a decade ago. Has 'zero tolerance' so thoroughly reversed?
imgabe
11 hours ago
If they say they don’t have a phone, fine. If they later have a phone out in class, you tell them to put it in a cubby. If they have it and don’t take it out in class it’s not a problem.
lovecg
11 hours ago
That’s exactly what they use at some of the schools that tried it (and there’s an arms race where some kids figured out how to hack these devices and unlock them). Locking up thousands and thousands of dollars worth of phones for the day is way too much liability for a school otherwise.
mensetmanusman
8 hours ago
Society can choose to pass on bowing to the God of insurance in this case :)
Gys
11 hours ago
I imagine it is not difficult to make a phone detector. A phone is sending almost constantly. If a phone has to be in flight mode the whole lesson then there is no reason to bring one
TheCoreh
11 hours ago
It is extremely hard to make a phone detector that's able to detect only phones in a specific room, considering how far the cellular signals can travel, and how pervasive wifi is for everything
scarface_74
10 hours ago
Even airlines can’t really tell when all of the phones are in airplane mode…
jonhohle
11 hours ago
If they don’t take it out and use it (or at least don’t get caught using it), what’s the problem? If they’re using a phone in class, take it like any other distraction.
I have four kids in school and while extreme incidents are rare, if I set my kid to school with a phone it would be to contact me in an emergency. I completely agree with no phones out, on silent, etc., but I’m unsure how I feel about schools taking away tools that could be used to get help.
commodoreboxer
10 hours ago
I don't see a problem with taking the phone, as long as it's returned by the end of the day. The school should have your phone number on file and can reach you in an emergency. The situations where your child would specifically need to reach you on their own phone with no other possibilities of getting help (or getting their phone back in a hurry) while at school are so uncommon as to be not really with considering.
duxup
11 hours ago
I’d rather let administration for individual districts craft their own rules.
They have done well in districts my kids have been in.
State wide top down rules is too disconnected from the front lines for me to believe they’re anything but legislative theater.
jedberg
11 hours ago
The problem is that districts and schools have tried this, but then parents complain and threaten to sue about "stealing the phone" and such. The district doesn't have a leg to stand on.
They need a state law to back them up so that they can tell the parents to take it to their legislature instead of the principal.
duxup
11 hours ago
Every time I’ve seen phone rules deployed by a district they’ve been overwhelmingly popular.
danjl
11 hours ago
This law affects companies, not students, as it should be. Enforcing limits on students is the job of parents, not teachers or police.
mensetmanusman
8 hours ago
Parents have failed, government is for solving the collective action problem, we know what the best decision is for the kids.
jedberg
11 hours ago
I'm well aware of what this law does, but we are not talking about this law in this thread.
> Enforcing limits on students is the job of parents
Luckily in California we understand the value of protecting kids over uninformed adults. That's why we require vaccines to attend school.
danjl
11 hours ago
This is about individual freedoms, not public health, and is directly related to this post. Unfortunately, no law can protect against poor parenting.
jedberg
10 hours ago
> Unfortunately, no law can protect against poor parenting.
Oh, but they most certainly can. See the aforementioned vaccine laws. Or the law that provides free breakfast and lunch to every California student regardless of income. Of the law that requires dental coverage for anyone in the state under 18 (and provides it to those who can't afford it).
No matter how bad your parent is about feeding you, at least you know you'll get breakfast and lunch every school day, and you can get your teeth checked.
There are many laws that protect against poor parenting.
mensetmanusman
8 hours ago
You can do both which is why I think it should be the default choice and up to admins to choose how to deviate from the default.
queuebert
10 hours ago
Seriously. Teachers don't even let kids go to the bathroom without permission. How phones were allowed by default boggles the mind.
AceyMan
9 hours ago
California already implemented that separately. Los Angeles Unified district opened the fall term enforcing the prohibition; the statewide mandate begins 2025.
danjl
11 hours ago
You can't enforce silly laws. Who would enforce this ban? Teachers? That would be a school regulation, not a state law. Or do you want police walking around school arresting kids with phones? Do you enforce all of your guidance for your kids using legislation? A real solution to the distractions and harm that phones cause when used at school is harder, of course.
lotsoweiners
8 hours ago
My child goes to a charter school in Arizona. Their policy is that phones are stored in lockers. If a kid is caught with their phone in the building then the phone is confiscated and brought to the office. The parents are notified and the phone is only given back to the parent. I don’t understand why something similar couldn’t be implemented in public schools thus requiring no state law.
insane_dreamer
11 hours ago
as a parent with kids in school I am 100% in favor of this. In my son's middle school schools are not allowed in class but that puts the burden of enforcement on the teachers instead of just making it a blanket rule that you can't have it at school period
Eumenes
9 hours ago
I use to be pro-phone ban in schools but with all the creepy crap going on in public school systems, I think kids should be able to record their teachers/other students/staff.
Elfener
11 hours ago
Hungary just banned phones (and also all devices capable of connecting to the internet, and/or capable of recording audio and video) from school.
I'm a student in an IT technical school. The only thing this affected is now instead of my classmates playing on their phones during class, they're now loudly playing card games - and now people who do want to learn can't because the teacher has to constantly stop and yell at the people playing cards.
I think students should be able to do whatever they want during breaks - they can do actually useful things with their devices, other than scrolling social media or playing games.
Also, this new ban completely eliminated kahoot and similar, since phones are collected at the start of the day and giving them out for a class involves incredible amounts of paperwork. (So much for modern teaching/learning methods)
catgirlinspace
10 hours ago
i’m so glad to be finished with high school with all this happening. as a trans girl who was closeted in high school, being able to use my phone in between classes to text my accepting friends was the only way i survived. it sucks seeing that legislation doesn’t seem to consider that at all really.
heavyset_go
9 hours ago
If you listen to legislators pushing social media bans, they are taking cases like this into intense consideration in order to maximize the damage it would have on kids like you.
From [1]:
> A co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill intended to protect children from the dangers of social media and other online content appeared to suggest in March that the measure could be used to steer kids away from seeing transgender content online.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/sena...
jacoblambda
11 hours ago
This gets messy because you already have problems with (mostly substitute) teachers ripping out implants (ex: insulin pump), cutting wires/tubes, or preventing kids from using their phone to monitor blood sugar, etc because they try to be "tough" on the no phones rule.
mistrial9
11 hours ago
you are suggesting that life-threatening levels of dependency requiring a phone to continue to live, is common enough to warrant public policy ?
jacoblambda
6 hours ago
Yes. There are a lot of devices that support people with disabilities that nowadays use a phone as their interface. In the past most had their own devices but phones are near universally available so they have become the go-to interface for most of these devices.
Larrikin
11 hours ago
How can kids say their last goodbyes when the school shooter is running around?
jedberg
11 hours ago
Saying this is similar to saying "I won't fly 500 miles, flying is dangerous, I'd rather drive!"
The truth of the matter is that school shootings are still much rarer than the daily use of phones in school. Talk to a current middle/high school teacher. They will tell you that in most classes there are at least some kids on their phone the entire time, and there is nothing they can do about it. And those kids distract the ones around them.
Kids get "emergency" texts from home midday, and it turns out to be stuff like "I put your socks away for you".
They can't take the phone away anymore because if they do, a parent comes in making the same argument you did, or they accuse the school of theft.
A statewide ban of phones during class time would at least give the local administration and district some air cover in these cases to confiscate phones that are being used during class.
RoddaWallPro
10 hours ago
With (I assume) cell phone use prevalent in every single classroom in the nation that hasn't banned them, and school shootings a minuscule probability, "much rarer" is doing a lot of work here hah.
Aeolun
11 hours ago
Fix for that is completely different.
chii
11 hours ago
[flagged]
m8s
11 hours ago
This is a really gross comment and should be removed.
banku_brougham
11 hours ago
This is meant to be darkly humorous I'm sure, but this question is a serious one. I think the market is ripe for an application that could be a part of the educational suite installed on the in-class tablets, which could be enabled only during lockdown.
No need to overdesign the architecture at this stage, but the requirements are pretty simple. Each user could be configured via school it adminstrator to allow video chat connections only to parent/gaurdian devices with the app installed.
Larrikin
11 hours ago
As a parent, school shootings are the real serious issue and one the kids actually care about as well.
Phones should be banned like Pokemon cards were banned. Bringing them to school is fine, using after class and even lunch is fine, but having them out in class gets them taken away and detention for repeat offenses.
dotancohen
8 hours ago
As someone with friends and coworkers who spent their last minutes last year on WhatsApp trying to communicate with family, this is a very bad idea.
insane_dreamer
11 hours ago
> this question is a serious one
the question may be serious but the "solution" (kids have a phone so they can call their parents before they get shot) is not
there are other ways to prevent school shootings, but because we have so many people in this country who like to play with guns we can't get it together enough to take the measures needed that would greatly reduce and perhaps totally eliminate school shootings (which are an almost uniquely American experience, and as a parent with kids in school, it's frankly terrifying and I couldn't give 2 f's about what the founding fathers wrote 250 years ago when the context and reasons for the 2A, which made sense at the time, have nothing to do with our modern era. It's like saying "well our illustrious all all-knowing founding fathers didn't find it necessary to ban slavery in the Constitution, and in fact, provided for it (3/5s etc.), so we should bow to their infinite wisdom and continue to allow it today."