Phone in School

New York City, along with other school districts, does not allow students to bring their cell phones to school. Since 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has banned the use of cell phones in New York City public schools. As a result, according to reports by public radio station WNYC, The New York Post, and other organizations, some New York City public school students are paying $1 a day to store their cell phones at local stores or trucks. While that fee may sounds like pocket change, it amounts to over $4 million a year, and the students who have to use these services to check their phones during the school day are those who attend the 88 (out of 1,200) public schools with metal detectors. Therefore, students with few resources wind up paying, sometimes out of their lunch money, a total of about $150 a year to have their cell phones with them. These news reports have re-opened the debate over cell phone use in school.
The Debate Over Cell Phone Use
In the ongoing debate over whether cell phones should be allowed in school, parents and schools are often at odds. While schools claim that students spend too much of the school day texting instead of concentrating in class, parents want a reliable way to connect with their children during the school day. Parents' need to connect has become even more critical in the aftermath of horrible events such asSeptember 11, 2001, and the tragic shootings at schools at colleges. Parents need to know that they can reliably connect with their kids, particularly in the case of a family, local, or larger emergency.
Schools, on the other hand, claim not only that cell phone use interferes with students' concentration, but also that cell phones can contribute to cheating, which, according to studies, is on the rise in schools nationwide. In fact, one of the easiest ways teachers, including at private schools, can prevent cheating is to confiscate cell phones, scientific calculators (as students can use the memory functions to store