MS 51, Teen Spirit’s middle school alma mater, is in the news. Yesterday, there was a press conference outside those hallowed halls. My friend, Kim Maier (MS 51 PTA prez), is quoted in this article from New York 1.
The debate over whether cell phones should be banned from public schools is not over.
Students, parents and school officials who are trying to increase
pressure on the city to change the policy, saying it doesn’t make
sense, held a news conference outside M.S. 51 in Park Slope, Brooklyn,
Monday to lobby for their position.“Most of them arrive with the cell phone, it gets turned off, it
goes into their backpack, gets stored in their locker for the day, and
doesn’t come out again till 3:00," said M.S. 51 Parent-Teacher
Association President Kim Maier.But Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he is sticking by the cell phone ban.
"You can’t use cell phones in schools, you can’t use iPods. Why
can’t you get the message? They’re just not appropriate," he says.The ban is getting more attention since school safety officers last
month started random scanning of students with portable metal
detectors. The program’s goal was to uncover weapons, but hundreds of
cell phones were also confiscated.The head of the teachers’ union says that’s going too far.
"We need a balanced plan that says out and out, prohibit the use of
cell phones in schools, and if kids abuse it, you can confiscate it.
But don’t say to a child or parent you can’t bring your cell phone to
school," said United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.Parents, teachers and local lawmakers who would like to see a
change in the cell phone policy have suggested some solutions. One
would be letting each school decide on its own what its cell phone
policy should be.The other is to have students hand in their phones when they get to
school in the morning. They would get it back when they leave.“We have to make sure that whatever system we come up with does not
end up with disruption of the classroom, and does not end up with other
safety problems being created," said Brooklyn City Councilman Bill de
Blasio.While a ban on cell phones in schools has been in effect since 1987, it’s recently been more vigorously enforced.
See? This is why people think public school is for retards.
CELL PHONES CAN SAVE LIVES…
this is the thought that runs through my head when I hear the discussion about banning cell phones from public schools….Yes, there should be a rule in public schools that no cell phones can be used in school except in emergencies, and that other uses can lead to confiscation, but… What would happen in a city with no alert sirens, barely any working pay phones, and TV broadcast antennas that collapse with falling towers they are mounted on, when emergencies do happen?
What about St. John’s College in Queens, where the text messages went out faster than security guards ever could:
“The scene at the university yesterday underlined how campus security has been rethought in this country since April, when a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. Instead of fleeing out of classrooms and onto the street, students at St. John’s were instructed, via text message to their cellphones, to stay where they were.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/nyregion/27rifle.html?ref=education
Personally, I’m more concerned that my child would have access to communication in emergencies and when he needs to get home safely, than if some pathetically desperate student uses his cellphone to cheat on an exam…Exams are NOT life and death…our kids’ safety is more important.
If schools need to eliminate cellphone use from within the school, let them find a way to legalize cell phone jamming, which is what Bloomberg and Co. are unfortunately doing using proposed laws instead of illegal technology.
http://www.slate.com/id/2092059/
perhaps if cell phones were used for athsmatic kids who have had problems in schools where the rule was not to call 911, they could have called for the ambulance themselves.
http://www.totallawyers.com/legal-articles-911-ban.asp
Bloomberg made his billions in high technology—ironic, the Luddite restrictions he’s proposing for the rest of us. Come on Mike, do unto others….
Gilly Youner
i also am a student at ms 51, and i agree that the cell phone controversy is outrageous. they should let us have our cell phones in school to be left in our lockers. if they need to, they could take away my cell phone at the beginning of the day and give it back, but that would just be confusing. we wouldn’t get our own cell phones unless we plastered our names all over them. this is crazy.
as a student at 51, i went through this whole cell phone controversy. kids that have cell phones are not spoiled. its simply a way for our parents to keep in touch with us and make sure we are not getting into trouble. i think it was ridiculous when we had to line up before school started to get our bags checked. we missed most of our 1st period classes. as long as the kids dont use their cell phones while inside school, then its fine
Right you are, Jim. Who thought that the world would turn on a dime after 9-11 and that we would worry about being in contact with them ? The technology is there, it isn’t reasonable to expect people not to use it if they are able and if it proves helpful.
If the above blogger could ease up on the hostility a bit he might better understand what it’s like to worry about someone other than yourself. Yeah, we parents worry about our kids. We love our kids and sometimes send them to schools outside the borough if it seems like a good thing. A kid with a cell phone shouldn’t be a source of conflict or concern for anyone other than we parents and our (somewhat) spoiled kids. P.S. – I don’t own an SUV or a gun.
Right Brooklyn Beat, if spoiled little bratty kids make their indulgent parents buy them a cell phone so they can yack on the phone and text each other all day, that is their business. We all know that 9-11 is like a weekly occurance, so we need to outfit these little snots in anticipation of this. That is why I am buying my perfect child a SUV and a shotgun. No one is going to make my child walk home, post the apocalypse, without some protection.
By the way – if you love your child so much, why did you let her/him go to school so far away from you?
OK, guys. Get a life. Let parents be the ones to worry about what is best for our kids. As a parent of a child (now at college) who was in middle school in Manhattan on 9-11, I was grateful for even the remote possibility of being able to communicate or text message with her during the ensuing chaos..the payphones were all jammed. If you could find a payphone, there were lines everywhere..the school phone was constantly busy and impossible to get through for hours…
I’ll bet you Blissfully Childless Ones (BFOs) wouldn’t scrimp on spending for Doggy Day Care or Pet Massages, or whatever BFOs spend your disposable mazuma on..I won’t judge you (much) on that..don’t judge us on how we attempt to communicate with our kids and try to preserve the fragile security of childhood and youth in the madness of the early 21st century.
My family is not affected by the cell phone ban because we do not think it necessary for our MS 51 child to have one at all, but I do understand the importance for some children, after school, to contact their parents in emergency or in transit. Pay phones would be a viable option, like it was for me when I was as an inner city kid going to an from school in a combination of buses and subways. but nowadays most pay phones are broken. I only bought a cell phone for emergencies after a year of not being able to call on pay hones more than half the time.
But my tolerance of cell phones in schools dropped considerably over the end of the last school year and the beginning of the new school year as I watch week after week kids arriving late to John Jay on 7th Avenue being let in by their friends after a quick call to them on theirs cells. This also means that kids can let not only late classmates in but also adults and kids that do not belong in the school. It is an enormous risk to the safety and welfare of students when points of egress are not monitored and visitors not signed in.
Perhaps New York City schools could allow those new kids phones that only have parent and emergency numbers. That way they could not be used for messaging other students or making inappropriate contact to others out side the school.
While a ban on cell phones in schools has been in effect since 1987, it’s recently been more vigorously enforced.
Absurd. Either enforce the ban, or quash it. Letting it be ignored teaches kids to disrespect the law.
FWIW I would advocate common sense: bring it if you want, but if you use it in class, it’s gone forever. What’s not to understand?
Right on Michael! I am getting sick of these spoiled kids and their parents who think the world starts and stops with them. Let them use a pay phone!
Cell phones have no place in the schools during school hours. They can be used for text messages which like passing notes in the olden days is disruptive. Also they can be used for cheating on exams. The excuse that a student may have an emergency and must be able to call out or receive a message is a red herring. In a true personal emergency there are procedures for reaching a student or parent. Where to hang out for lunch is not an emergency. We have survived without instant contact before the cell phone and this cell phone demand is no more than just a another societal temper tantrum of I want mine now. We need less cell phone use not more.