At my son's school, they all have to put the phones in the 'phone hotel' at the beginning of the day and pick them up at the end. Sorta worked, until the kids all just started bringing in old phones to drop in the phone hotel and keep their actual phones with them. That and the Apple watches and chromebooks mean pretty much no kid has any trouble doing whatever they want even without their phones.

What could you actually do with an Apple Watch though? Sounds like a better solution if you really need a communication link that isn’t as distracting as a smart phone. Texting is still possible, just not very convenient.

Yes, texting. They text amongst their friends who are in different classes.

Parental control the watch's functionality during school hours to just calling or texting 911 and mom/dad?

Do students these days learn to text without seeing the screen? It strikes me as more difficult to do with a touch screen, but we used to do it with T9 phones back in the day.

Try SwiftKey... Not the same but I can do it without looking that much - and one-handed.

When I taught high school English, admin never drew such a hard line. Teachers were additionally told that we would be personally responsible for the replacement cost of a phone should it become damaged/lost if taken from a student. As you would expect, phones were rarely taken off students, and they were a constant frustration.

Maybe there's a technical solution for this.

Companies could give students a special form of (e)sim card where the school could disable data and block calls that does not go to family, emergency services etc. during class, and then unblock it automatically when there are no classes.

I'm sure it's not as simple as suggested above, otherwise someone would have made it already. But perhaps there is a similar technical solution for this problem, as parents and schools are unable to fix it on their own.

Build a giant Faraday cage around the classrooms. Blocks telecomms.

Then you’ll get a visit from the FCC.

Faraday cages are not illegal, actively jamming by emitting ypur own signals is what the FCC cares about.

No, they will not get a visit from FCC for any form of passive blocking.

Maybe in a banana republic, but certainly not in U.S.A.

Schools take away so much control from students that it’s natural they want to hold on to whatever they have left.

> As a principal

> their pacifier

Yikes.

Don't worry. I've seen lot of school administration treat students as things to be controlled, not people.

They're half-formed people who do often need their behavior controlled in some way. Some students or student bodies may be mature enough to be responsible for themselves, but not all.

There's a stark difference between setting boundaries and treating people like objects.

I've experienced both. Some schools are really good. The private K-12 religious school I went to treated kids like people and still set boundaries. The local public high school did the same. The public grade school was a horror show. College was particularly interesting. Most of the administration did not care about students as people. Everyone else did.

> There's a stark difference between setting boundaries and treating people like objects.

You need to talk to work with some high schoolers then. There is a large chunk of that population that the school is in their orbit. They casually treat people like objects. They don't just tune out, but actively disrupt anything going on, ruining the days of teachers, staff and students -- for sport.

That’s true. But the disdain and disrespect for students was just dripping from that comment. Is that someone you’d want teaching your kids?

> But the disdain and disrespect for students was just dripping from that comment.

Where? I don't see any of it, let alone dripping amounts.

But yes, I'd love to send my kids to a school where the principal was strongly anti-cell-phone.

How old are your kids? What do you think of their current level of cell phone usage?

Eldest is 10. No phones yet. We're getting them a dumb phone to share for certain situations, soon. They can get a smartphone when they can buy it and pay for the plan on their own. No taking it to school.

[EDIT] My main concern over the next few years is social pressure of the "you have no phone, so your family must be poor" sort. We've had a 2nd grader teased for being poor because she "only has one backpack". LOL. I have some uncharitable thoughts about those families.

Yes, I think that will be a challenging approach to take :) I do wish more people were as thoughtful about it as you are. Setting good phone & Internet habits is really, really hard for everybody, students & adults included. Hopefully setting some good examples early will help them with that later.

Heh, well, yeah, that's the plan anyway. We'll see if it survives "contact with the enemy", as the saying goes. I think years 12-15 are gonna be rough, but after that, like... if it matters that much to you, go get a job and pay for it? That seems totally reasonable to me. If they don't, guess it didn't matter that much after all. I figure if they're responsible enough to plan and get a job and save, they're ready for the phone—if not, they'd better grow in those ways, if they want one. I'm hoping this ends up being one of those Pro Gamer Moves where I force them to improve and learn something to get what they want, but who knows, may not work out.

I think it's an apt analogy.

What's "yikes" about that? I'm a parent and I'd love it for a principal to take a hardline stance like that on distractions. Kids (and adults for that matter) can't be trusted to use phones responsibly.

Did you see the video of the teacher getting pepper sprayed by a student for doing that? Seems like In some places rules a simply unenforceable

That's a model school compared to my middle and high school, where the teachers wouldn't even try to teach, so you could chill with your phone all you wanted. :D

(Both grossly overcrowded and underfunded majority black schools)