School Cell Phone Rules
 

Can anyone tell me what the cell phone rules are in local secondary schools? Does anyone's school have a rule that states that the school can keep a phone that's been taken up until the end of the year? (Is that even legal?)

Regarding cellphones...the rules that I can remember from HS were pretty much that cellphones were not allowed. If a student HAD to carry a cellphone, then it must be kept off or on silent. The cellphone had to be kept in a locker or somewhere far so it wouldn't distract the student.

If the teacher catches you with a cell phone they can confiscate it. It really is up to the teacher, they can give it back to you at the end of the class period, day, or they can turn it into the office. If it is turned into the office then they will call the parents let them know that the cellphone is confiscated and that they can pick it up or the student will get it back at the end of the semester.

I'm not sure of the legality, but it probably is since it hasn't been fought yet.

That's what the rules were like when I was in junior & high school... but in my corner of the world, cell phones weren't wildly popular yet at that age... now kids carry cell phones as young as 5 (no kidding ...) with texting and cameras embedded in most all phones now I would imagine the rules have gotten even more strict because they can be distractions and/or ways to cheat during exams.

Back when I was in school, if you dropped your quarter for the pay phone and interrupted the teacher, MAN were you in trouble...

Where's my walker?

There was ONE payphone in my high school. It was in the school lobby, which in and of itself was off-limits during classes. So between 7:40 and 1:50 (GASP!) the only way to reach you was to call the main office, at which point you were paged over the PA system. And it better be an emergency!

Personally, as a teacher, I abhor cell phones in the classroom. We have signs posted throughout hallways asking that they be turned off, but then class is interrupted by the chiming of students text messaging each other.
Our school allows for phones to be confiscated by the teacher if they are out or on during class, but then we've been directed to take them immediatley up to the office and turn them in to an administrator. That way we aren't held liable if anything happens to the phone. The parent is then allowed to come pick the phone up from the administrator. If the problem becomes chronic, the student may be suspended for persistant insubordination and failure to follow district rules regarding electronic devices.

My kids are both in middle school and the rule is "No Cell Phones". They can have them in backpacks, lockers, purses, etc., but if they are seen they are confiscated.
1st Offense: Student can pick it up at the end of the day
2nd Offense: Parent must come in to pick it up
3rd Offense: School keeps it til the end of the year

In grammar school (k-8) we confiscated, gave detention, and the parent had to come pick it up. In high school, we simply wrote a discipline report. By the end of the day, the child was suspended for a min of 2 days. It went up with each offense.

This is also the rule at the school where I teach.

In Cleveland, OH High Schools, they had a no cell phone policy, but they recently changed it because of the school shooting that occurred. Now kids can keep cell phones on them, but they must be turned off unless there is an emergency.

As for keeping the phone for an entire year, that sounds fairly harsh for a first offense. Can you get it back sooner if the parent goes in to the office?

When I was a sub in a HS the students and their parents all signed a booklet on the first day of school with the school rules. This rule was in there (along with the no fighting, no saggy pants, etc) so they couldn't use the excuse " I didn't know the rule". That was before the school shooting at VA so maybe they have relaxed the rule now. I've heard in colleges the kids text each other and cheat on tests so I can see why teachers don't want them.

no, teacher's can't legally keep anything untill the end of the year. Sometimes parents let them, but parents can get the stuff back, especially for something like a cell phone.

Most schools around here are stupid and won't let any phones on campus. I agree that they should be off in class, but they could be usefull if something bad happens. Plus, there are pay phones in the hallway for inbetween class, I don't get why a cell phone would be different.

The problem with cell phones are that you can 1) take a picture of your test and instantly send it to a friend who has the class later in the day, 2) text message answers back and forth all day long or look things up on the internet during an exam and 3) the distraction factor alone in a classroom setting. I feel badly for the poor teacher who is trying to lecture and they can see all these kids texting.

Honestly, while it seems harsh to say they'd keep it til the end of the year, there's really no reason for a kid to have it out anyway. If the kid follows the rules, no problem. My kid would be in big trouble if they even got to a second offense on this one. I didn't get them cell phones to goof off with them in school!

While they shouldn't have cellphones in school for the reasons Dee mentioned, I would have a REAL issue with the school keeping it till the end of the year. I'm assuming some of these phones have prepaid plans that you can't turn off, and I'd be irate if my money for the phone service was being wasted while it sat in a school office somewhere.

Please keep in mind that I'm relatively new to cell phone billing and such, but this isn't like keeping Johnny's slingshot for the year.

I agree with you about that part and I'm sure I'd be furious.. I'm just not sure if I'd be more furious with my kid or the school. I think I'd be more ticked with the kid for not keeping the dang thing in their pocket/backpack or purse on THREE separate occasions. I think I would take their phone away from them after I had to pick it up from the office myself.

But at the same time, the school will only keep the phone at the 3rd offense. It isn't like the parents didn't know it was going to happen.

IDK about everyne else, but if my child reached the 2nd offense, i'll be damned if he/she keeps the phone. I'd take it away from them for the rest of the year.

IDK my BFF Jill?


Sorry - I found that acronym funny in a thread about cell phones.


Carry on.

I was teaching when cell phones became common. I usually gave kids one "freebie". If it rang again, I'd take up the phone, and go give it to the headmaster. The parent would have to come talk to the headmaster in order to pick it up.
I didn't have a problem with the phones in school as long as they were turned off. I knew that I would want my daughters (they were too young at the time) to have phones when they were older.
My favorite phone story - I'm giving a final when a phone rings. Andrea gives me a panicked look."Answer it", I say. It turns out to be HER MOTHER. Where, I ask you, did she expect her daughter to be at 10:00 in the morning on a school day? We laughed about it, and she turned the phone off.
Kids. I don't know what's wrong with these kids today.

I used to volunteer at the front desk at the HS and until the last two years there were supposed to be no cell phones in the school. First offense, parent had to pick up phone and student had Saturday school. Second offense, the phone was school property until the end of the year. This rule was in place when cell phones were mainly used for making drug deals (along with pagers, etc.). When oldest daughter was a freshman, her friend got Saturday school for standing in the parking lot calling her mom to pick her up from band. Puh-lease. (this was in 2001)

Now they can have them in school as long as they are off and kept in backpacks. I don't work in the office anymore, so I don't know what the current punishment is for using them. I know the teachers used to pick up lots of them during lunch and in the bathrooms between classes. My favorite was when a freshman's dad came in to talk about her phone getting confiscated "because we didn't know she couldn't have it in school" and she called him from somewhere in the school on somebody else's phone while he was at the desk talking to us. Another time a mother called and wanted us to page her daughter so she could get another mother's cell phone number from her friend. When we refused to call her to the front desk to take this very "important" call during school, she said "well, I'll just have to text her and if she gets in trouble it will be all your fault!"

My niece was telling me that at her high school, they have to put their backpacks against the wall away from the desks during tests. I never thought about it before, but I wonder if that helps cut down on the cell-phone as a cheating tool?

And I was in HS school when CarPhones where the big thing. If I remember correctly, they were actually installed into the car and where HUGE. I think the handpiece even had a wire connecting it to the base. Ahh, the good old days.

I can understand why the no cell phone rules exist, but let's face it, kids cheated before cell phones, and they'll cheat without them. I have seen guys with notes written on the inside of the brim of their hats; girls wearing skirts would write notes on their thighs and simply pull their skirt back a little to read them; students would leave pages with notes under their books on the floor and nudge the books aside with their feet to read their notes; etc...

I'm not saying cell phones should be allowed - I'm certainly a big fan of keeping them out of classrooms. But, if administrators think they're making headway against cheating by banning cells, they're sadly mistaken - students who cheat will just find another way to do it.

This was true at my nursing school. NO cellphones period. evenhtough all bookbags, purses and belongings were required to be at the front of the room during an exam, if your cell phone was on and went off during an exam it was considered an intent to cheat and you automatically failed the exam. I have seen people try to use them to cheat so I know it happens. I did have a couple of instructors that made an exception for me when last year my husband was having problems with the ex-wife and there was a chance someone not on the kids' pick up lists may try to take them out of school. So during exams i had my phone on vibrate and my instructors held my phone for me and watched for three numbers, but I let them know about that situation as soon as it started. I also didnt have a habit of allowing my phone to go off in class or leaving class to answer my phone. Scanning pens and calculators were also not allowed....and about half the instructors wouldnt let you tape record the classes either unless you had a form from the office of disabilities.

When i was in high school, cell phones were mainly in people's cars because they were all huge analog phones. A lot of students, myself included, did have pagers and those were confiscated if you were caught with one.

I teach middle school. Students are allowed to have cell phones, but they have to be turned off and out-of-sight. If they ring or students are using them, we take them up and turn them in to the office. Parents have to pick them up. Our big problem is students texting each other or calling parents from the bathroom.

eeeeexactly!

it shouldn't be an issue if they would just follow the rules.

the parents should be mad at their kids for being idiots and taking it out during class for no reason in the first place. but of course nothing is ever the kid's fault anymore since all parents think their kids are perfect angels and are being picked on by the teachers :rolleyes:

At my high school, you could have cell phones, but you could not use them. If you were caught using them you got into trouble (or in my case, it fell out of my pocket at lunch, a principal saw it, then checked through my text messages and saw I had been using it during school). 1st offense MOST teachers would just call you out and make you put it away then the 2nd time they would take it away for the rest of the day/class. After that most teacher's would take it to the office who would then send it to the school board and you have to have you parents go with you to pick it up, if if got sent to the school board again, then they kept it for the rest of the year.

In college, most people keep their phones on the desk next to them for most of the class, and just keep them on silent. Some profs get upset about it, but almost all of mine don't seem to mind unless it is a studio/lab/ensemble type class.

Honestly, in high school it is so easy to subtly use your cell phone that getting it taken away multiple times is just ridiculous!

Cell phones were still uncommon when I was in high school. Pagers/Beepers were what the cool kids carried. Unfortunately, Virginia Beach schools considered them to be drug paraphanalia. Having one on campus was grounds for immediate expulsion. Even during football games, etc, any adult caught with a pager would be required to leave it in their car. The only way they could keep it on them is if they proved they were a doctor. :o

Toronto public schools passed the no cell phone on campus rule just DAYS after the Virginia Tech shootings, which outraged parents.

At other schools, phones are to be kept in lockers from what I've been told.

This rule is the same as many of the schools where I have taught.

At the HS I work at we have a pretty hard line policy. No phones are to be seen or heard durring school hours. If a phone is seen or heard we have to take it from the student, attach their student profile to it and turn it into administration. Once administration has it, it is turned over to the police department who hold on to it for at least a week. They then send a postcard to the parents telling them they can pick up their childs phone but must pay a $15 fine.

This is a district wide policy as well not just at our school specifically.

That's taking it a little to far IMO. As an adult, no one should be telling me I can't have a pager/cell phone during a HS football game and I know I'd be pretty pissed off if that was what I was told.

Yikes. That's a bit tough, getting the police involved. Is there a reasoning behind that?

I think turning it over to the police is harsh, but I really like the fine idea.

Ugh, I think those cell phone rules are so stupid. The phone is the property of the person; the school should not have the right to keep it. If I was at work and my phone was consistently disturbing my work, then my employer would be within his rights to send me home or something - which is why I like the fine idea as well. But for a system that claims to be preparing kids for the 'real world', the rules are archaic in the extreme sometimes.

I wonder how long it'll take for someone to sue the school for unlawful seizure of property.

People didn't put up much of an arguement since we had uniformed police officers conducting the hand held metal detecter sweeps. They would set it to the most sensitive setting, gumwrapper foil would set it off. So pagers set it off too.

My high school & jr high didn't care as long as you weren't using it.
If a teacher saw you with it out, they'd just ask you to put it away

Are you a teacher? Have they disturbed you teaching lessons on a regular basis? Have students cheated in your classes using phones? Have students at your school used them to tape fights between other kids? If so, then maybe you might understand, but from your statements, I guess not:rolleyes: I've taken away phones, even from kids stupid enough(and I mean stupid) to text while sitting in the front row right next to my desk. Cell phones are not a necessity item, we all survived fine without them for many years, did we not?

I've caught kids texting during class, taking pictures, recording others without permission, etc...Why the hell does the kid need the phone on during the day? They are at school, and they are there to learn, not take phone calls and text their friends two classrooms down. They can't wait the 55 minutes of class time to "talk" with their friends during the passing period or at snack/lunch? I understand having them for emergencies, but what happened in the old days when we had emergencies? Oh wait, our parents came and got us or called the school to get us out of class.

How many of these phone calls that students are getting are actual emergencies? Maybe less than .01% WTF are parents thinking calling their kids during class? It's CLASS!

If, as a parent, you don't like the rules for the school where you child is designated to go, perhaps you shouldn't send them there. I don't see how expecting school to be a learning environment and expecting it to be uninterrupted by a ringing phone is archaic.

At the middle school I work at, we have a no tolerance policy for cell phones and ipods. If we see them, we take them and they are turned into your floor office. The first time they are taken, students can pick them up at the end of the day. The second time (and for some brilliant ones) third, fourth, fifth... parents must come in to get the phone or ipod back.

Honestly, at 13 or 14 do you think that they really need to call anyone during school? I don't care if it's lunch or passing period. I've watched girls in particular take out their phones in the hallway, pretend they're at their lockers, then get mad when they're late to class and are written up. I have no problem with students using them if it's an emergency and on more than one occasion I have allowed students to use them to call home and check on situations. And if there were ever an emergency, I know I'd feel better if my kid could call home and let me know s/he's okay. So the moral of the story is: if they're off and in your purse/pocket/backpack, I never find out about them and the student has them in case of emergency. Once they come out, they become a nuisance and will be taken away.

Co-sign.

Amen, AOII_LB93!