re: Cell phones at school

In this day and age, especially if you have older kids who drive back and forth from school, it's unrealistic to expect them to not have them at all in school IMO.

That said, it's not unreasonable to expect a kid to keep it in his/her pocket/purse with the ringer on silent during instruction. Or for a teacher to ask them to put it away when they're on it when they're not supposed to be. A lot of district/state personnel who come in to audit a school when their scores are low will mark a teacher if a student is sitting there on the phone and you don't address it.