My kids' high school required a smart phone. They wanted kids using the calendars to track assignments and projects, they used the camera to capture homework instructions from a whiteboard, they were assigned projects that required video shot on their phone, they communicated via something that resembled a private version of Twitter, etc...

I suppose it didn't need to be an activated phone though. You could probably get buy with cheap android phone you buy at CVS and use the school's wifi.