re: Push Back from Cell Phone plan in public schools.

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So those parents that support students having cell phones, don't complain when your child graduates and reads at a third grade level or can't do basic math

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But imjustafatkid’s child has a cell phone at school and is doing fine. That’s irrefutable evidence that cell phones at school aren’t a problem.

My kids aren't getting smart phones until 16 or social media until they are out of my house. This is actually the norm at their schools right now. We are planning to give our youngest a "dumb phone" earlier that can call us, 911, etc.

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lol. honestly it’s just laughable how delusional and out of touch most everyone in this thread is.

I think most of this thread either has very old children, no children, children too young for school, and again delusional.

Your kid won’t always be able to get to their locker if there’s an emergency.

To clarify (if it makes a difference) It’s not phones anymore for the most part. It’s watches, like apple watches, that can make calls.

I even know a handful of kindergarten parents that send their kid to school with a watch.

3rd/4th is usually when most of the kids start to have it though. There’s literally not one 4th grade student that doesn’t have a watch to make phone calls at our local school. That’s not an exaggeration, it is a fact. Not a single 4th grader.

Not that I care what anyone decides for their only kids and devices, do whatever you want. Like I said tho, I think most of you are just out of touch on this by a mile.

It’s just a different world now.

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I have several kids from below 10 to a few years older. This is not the case at all at our schools. It is the opposite. Parents in one of my kids' class actually got together to agree to not give them smart phones until high school (we're waiting until they drive). Are there one offs in middle school? Sure, but it's a minority. The school also has a "phone off" policy during school hours (even lunch) and if they break it without permission, that phone is confiscated and kid is in detention.

I wish they'd just hold them all day and give them back after. We have automated emergency alerts and shite in each classroom that can directly notify all parents if something happens, I don't need my 4th grader in charge of alerting me.

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Phones in the classroom....bad. Take them away.

My kid (rising 10th grader) at school without a phone and ability to access it when not in class....also bad.

This world she is living in is vastly different than the one I grew up in. The bus arrived reliably. After school I went directly to practice and practice was over when it got dark or was supposed to if indoors. A schedule change was highly irregular. I was also in a small town and knew everyone so if I had to flex, no biggie. Oh, and my parents never had to deal with bomb threats or suspicious crap (my daughter had two last year).

Nowadays? Good luck knowing when the bus will run or when she will be on it if delayed. Practice times shift at least once every two weeks and usually more (girls sports with single fields for both boys and girls..such as soccer are the biggest issues). The school will send you a very vague message and you hope you see it while working. We are now in a larger city so wandering around to kill time is not a great option like it was for me. I need to be able to hear from her and work out plan changes. Plus the "I'm ok" text during those incidents were pretty freaking helpful.

Her school had pockets that all students put their phones in to start class. That is how teachers actually took roll. Kids had them at lunch and between classes, which was fine. However, due to the inability to truly enforce that (kids would have extra devices, etc), they are going to the locked bag thing that you see at concerts, etc. Locked as you walk in, unlocked as you walk out (oh and the metal detectors are still there so the additional devices will also get locked up). They also restrict outside email access. Imagine every time a practice got moved (and again, this is not infrequent), the office was flooded with the entire team to unlock their phones and then them sitting there until adjustments were final.

The happy medium requires discipline from students (and their parents) and enforcement from the school. I am sure we will be fine, but this whole "we cant enforce the rules/laws we have so instead we are going to either drop the rules or put more ridiculous ones in place" thing is pretty tiresome.

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This can all also be done with "dumb phones". Social media and the internet to me are the real devil. Not texting and calling. I could do that a bit in high school with the original Nokia bricks and it was hardly a real distraction.

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I will never understand the break down of the public school system and the Poosie stance taken by administration. How did our society get to the point that kids cannot be given strict rules for learning and discipline in a public classroom and school space? Making no one accountable (parents and their kids) for a clear safe learning environment.

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To me, it all started with Jimmy Carter carving the Department of Education from the existing Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1979). Giving the agency its own autonomy and making it a Cabinet-level agency gave it the ability to expand its power tremendously.

Reagan attempted to cut back the power of the new department but was stonewalled by Congress. HW Bush reversed Reagan's attempt at decentralizing the Dept of Ed by creating "national goals" for K-12. At this point, the Dept of Ed moves more from funding education to micromanaging it.

The move by Bush is what starts standardized testing.

In 1994, Clinton then builds on HW's idea by passing Goals 2000: Educate America Act (to promote "national education goals"). He also signed into law the Improving America's Schools Act, which requires states to develop federally-approved education plans coordinated with Goals 2000 and to adopt a system of tests to ensure that students make yearly progress. If states do not comply with these and other mandates, they will lose federal subsidies.

This is where standardized testing gets worse. :butwaittheresmore.gif:

In 2002, George Bush pushed through No Child Left Behind. This represented not only a metric frickton more money for schools, but an equally large expansion in what the Dept of Education demands of schools in order for them to be eligible to receive money (testing scores, teacher qualifications, after-school programs, etc).

In 2011, the head of Obama's Education department (Arne Duncan) sent his now-infamous "Dear Colleagues" letter which set forth a preponderance of evidence standard for student discipline. Along with that Duncan also pushed levels for the amounts of student discipline with the understanding that schools seeing what the Department determined was too many discipline issues (especially involving minority students) would result in the feds investigating the school (read: there would be findings and penalizations). The results of this in Broward County are well documented in Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies That Created The Parkland Shooter and Endanger America's Students.

Those are all steps which have led us to this point where teachers in various public schools are now demanded to be not just teachers but mothers, nurses, psychologists, etc while also having to jump through hoops just to discipline unruly students because administrators are scared shitless of having the feds come in and blame them for too many discipline issues being reported.

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BatonRougeGirl

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Pics?

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We had cellphones with us in the event that we needed to call our parents after school in case of an emergency or if theres a sudden change in your afternoon plans

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A few generations before you did not have them and life went on just fine.

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lol. honestly it’s just laughable how delusional and out of touch most everyone in this thread is.

I think most of this thread either has very old children, no children, children too young for school, and again delusional.

Your kid won’t always be able to get to their locker if there’s an emergency.

To clarify (if it makes a difference) It’s not phones anymore for the most part. It’s watches, like apple watches, that can make calls.

I even know a handful of kindergarten parents that send their kid to school with a watch.

3rd/4th is usually when most of the kids start to have it though. There’s literally not one 4th grade student that doesn’t have a watch to make phone calls at our local school. That’s not an exaggeration, it is a fact. Not a single 4th grader.

Not that I care what anyone decides for their only kids and devices, do whatever you want. Like I said tho, I think most of you are just out of touch on this by a mile.

It’s just a different world now.

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I have a child, she is too young for school at the present time, but we have toured schools. One of the schools that we toured and really liked required that phones be put into a cubby when the student entered the school. They picked up the phone from the cubby on the way out of school in the afternoon. I don't know what school your kid goes to, but obviously not all schools are like your kid's school.

We aren't out of touch, there are definitely phone free schools out there.

I don’t even know the rules at school, one in high school and one in middle. It’s their responsibility to know them and follow them. I’ve never needed to contact them during the day.