[dizzy9]

> In crafting its policy, Estacada incorporated feedback from parents. That led to some key decisions around the cell phone ban. Rather than use pouches or lockers, students are allowed to keep their phones safely stored in their backpacks. That was for two reasons — it allows students to contact loved ones during emergencies, and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on their kids.

I'm glad to hear this. They're currently trying to shill the magnetically sealed pouches in the UK, but the flaws are obvious: massive bottleneck at the pouch station would delay entry and exit from the building, phones would be unavailable during emergencies or to record incidents of crime or staff malpractice, and financial burden on schools.

Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class" rule.

[starkparker]

Don't get it twisted, almost every Portland-area school has gone full in on the stupid fucking Yondr pouches, and yeah it fucked up entry/exit: https://katu.com/news/local/portland-students-adapt-to-new-c...

They also begged parents to help pay for them: https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/portland-schools-ask-...

A friend's kid needs an exemption from their doctor because their phone is also their glucose monitor and diagnostic tracker, and the exception only allows them to unlock the pouch under supervision when necessary.

[selectively]

What a vulgar situation. Policy made from a moral panic and - look at that - it is negatively impacting actual people who exist.

[bpt3]

It's not a moral panic. There are loads of studies indicating that disconnected classrooms produce better outcomes for students.

I'm not sure what argument there is for allowing all students unfettered access to their phones, but feel free to present one.

[godelski]

There can be moral (or other) panics to real dangers. That doesn't mean cool heads don't lead to better solutions.

People panic in fires, trampling one another trying to get out. The danger is real, but so is the damage caused by the panic.

Here people are responding to real harms but we're often jumping to conclusions. Trying to act too fast. Thinking it is better to do something rather than nothing. But that's not always true. We see this happen with all sorts of complex problems we face these days. People care more about having an answer than they do a solution. This one is no different. We get bad answers like the above because people are rushing and not thinking about the consequences. But if things were as easy to solve as were wish they were then they'd already have been solved. The "easy" part only comes after a lot of hard work and really only from a high level

[bpt3]

What does this have to do with kids having phones during school?

[godelski]

I'm responding to your comment. It is exactly as on topic as your comment...

[selectively]

There are no reputable studies showing both correlation and causation there.

[array_key_first]

I'd argue you don't need a study, just reasoning. I mean, a study would be good, but we also have brains on our shoulders.

Learning to read or to do mathematics is like anything else, it takes practice. We know, intuitively from our own lives and observes virtually all humans, that humans perform better with less distractions. It would be hard to learn how to play the Tuba with me screaming behind you. It would be hard to learn chess with a movie playing in front of you.

Phones are distractions. Less phones = less distractions = better performance, smarter kids, more likelihood to graduate, higher average income.

[bpt3]

I'd link to some of the many studies published by reputable sources, but I suspect you'll brush them aside with your caveats

[selectively]

That 'caveat' is the actual science. So it's a pretty big deal.

[briffle]

Kids are smart. My school district has sealed pouches.. Its amazing how many kids throw an old phone in there, and put their actual one away hidden on silent.

Which I guess gets looked the other way, since they aren't using it in class.

[rtkwe]

It's definitely a mix of the actual phone pouches and the bans giving teachers actual authority and permission to confiscate phones when they're out and disruptive. IMO there's likely a shift that happens with pouches where there are enough kids following the rules and only having one phone in the pouch that it tips the social balance over. That would be harder with just teacher enforced bans I think.

It's definitely a hard problem over all balancing their completely disruptive nature if there's no bounds to the issues around safety and parental worry from not being able to contact their kid all the time which phones have made the norm.

[tiberone]

> Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class" rule.

Anybody who has spent even a day teaching knows how wildly inaccurate this statement is

[netruk44]

Anybody who has spent a day in school as a student knows that students can’t be trusted to follow the rules.

[DiskoHexyl]

People in general can't be trusted to follow the rules. That's why we have the inforcement.

Students are just little people

[rootusrootus]

This is how it works in my kids' school. Not Estacada, but not that far away, and not in Portland. No pouches or lockers, just an understanding that phones which are seen will be confiscated. First time they get sent to the office and returned as the student leaves school. Second time they have to be picked up by a parent.

You'd think it would be a huge deal with rebellious teens, but my daughter says it has basically been a non-issue.

[kimbernator]

>Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class" rule.

I'm honestly not educated on the topic right now since I haven't been in school for 15 years and have some time left before my daughter starts, but is this rule really not in place in most schools? How could any school justify not having this rule at the very least, regardless of how well-enforced it is?

I always assumed it was a lack of enforcement due to understaffing that was the problem

[DANmode]

It’s a lack of enforcement due to unruly, unparented children,

in most regions’ school districts.

[kimbernator]

I tend to avoid placing the blame on individuals (parents in this case) when the problem being described is so widespread. People act as rationally as they can, so if it's that common, it's a systemic failure. Scolding the masses is a fool's errand.

[DANmode]

> People act as rationally as they can

We’re talking about underdeveloped minds in the face of excruciating social and physiological pressure.

I’m pretty sure the systemic failure is, in part, that parents are, en masse, abdicating their responsibilities of guiding their children through the minefield of modern technology, from iPad kids on up.

The reasons why vary - and include being addicted themselves.

I’d love to hear any anecdotal evidence to the contrary - not just a dismissal, or being called a fool.

[kelseyfrog]

The society that supports phoneless children no longer exists. It stopped sometime in the 2010s. Taking away phones doesn't bring that infrastructure back, it culminates in something new and worse.

One example is the tension between childrens' independence and roaming and the now lack of payphones. Taking away a cell phone doesn't bring back payphones. It either reduces a child's independence or puts them in more dangerous situations. What it doesn't do is return them back to a time when a couple of quarters could call mom or dad.

[DANmode]

Who said take phones away?

No, teach them some motherfucking respect,

so they know, instinctually, that when someone’s talking to them for 30-60 minutes they should pocket or bag it.

[jon-wood]

The sealed pouches are a bit of theatre. My son's school has a policy that pupil's can take their phones to school but if one is seen or heard on the school grounds it'll be confiscated and the owner's parents called to come pick it up on their behalf. From what I hear they're not shy about applying that policy either.

[alexfoo]

Offsetting part of the punishment to the parents (having to get them to come in to the school to collect the phone) is going to help get the policy reinforced from home in most cases.

My kid’s school had a similar policy. I didn't mind having to go out of my way to collect the phone and didn’t pass any of that on to my kid, they were annoyed enough about having it confiscated that it only took a few times before they modified their behaviour accordingly.

[jon-wood]

Heh, my son goes to school in the next town over and I don't drive, which means it's either a 90 minute round trip by bus or £40 of taxi fares. I've made it abundantly clear to him that if I have to go into the school to get his phone back he's picking up the tab for my taxis.

[eudamoniac]

I don't understand. We had a "no phones in class" rule when I was in school over a decade ago. It was the obvious default. How did it go away, and how is this new policy different from the obvious? Are they saying that until now their policy was that phones are openly allowed in class? Why??

[fennecfoxy]

>Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class" rule.

And what if they don't? En masse?

[rtkwe]

At first a lot of parents get inconvenienced coming to get confiscated phones and if that doesn't inspire them to discipline their kid at home the school can move to the more draconian pouch systems.

[eloisant]

> it allows students to contact loved ones during emergencies, and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on their kids

That's such bullshit.

- There is no emergency that require students to contact anyone. Communication can go through the school

- Parents have no business tracking their kids when they're at school

[heavygrit]

> Parents have no business tracking their kids when they're at school

The tracker sends a notification when they're not at school, that's the point. Plus, I can lock down social media apps only during school hours. Blanket statements like this are plain ignorant. Also, I'm glad Utah finally passed a similar ban. Phones in use in class are a tremendous distraction 99% of the time.

[array_key_first]

If you kid is not at school, you will know. Kids weren't able to get away with hooky 20 years ago, let alone now. If they do it enough you'll have a court date!

I think this mostly boils down to our ever-connected society producing unreasonable expectations of communications. It is a very, very recent phenomena that you can instantly contact whoever whenever you want. Previously, it was common place to be unreachable for most of the day.

Realistically, your kid will survive, and even thrive, if you are not able to contact them for 8 hours a day. There is a downside to this kind of tether. It's a new type of ever-present anxiety, like someone breathing down your neck. Half of raising kids is teaching them what to do. The other half is leaving them alone, so they can learn to be competent adults.

[jwcooper]

This is ridiculous. The school will notify you if the student is not at school, or the teachers will eventually (or their grades/missing assignments).

Also you don't need to track your kids to enable school time mode, if you want to lock down their phone during school.

What are you going to do when they go to college? Track them? Monitor them? Make sure they go to classes?

At some point, you just have to trust your kids to do the right thing. It's a part of them learning how to grow up and be independent. It's better to make mistakes the younger you are so you can learn from them when there is less on the line.

[heavygrit]

This is even more ridiculous, how about that?? My particular school will send a message at 5pm daily with any attendance issues, but I can be notified instantly through the app. Why would I ever choose to be less informed? Also, I appreciate your points about college, but have you noticed a large number of students disproportionately boys are disenchanted with the whole education system at large and opting out of college. I'm clinging on to a hope that mine will see the value, but there are lots of different developmental speeds and some students need more guidance than others. You do realize some high school students just become burnouts, right? Your one size fits all, hands off and trust mentality is naïve and if you happen to be a parent, hopefully you'll be able to avoid the situation of parenting a student in crisis. Cell phones are a major problem in schools and I'm glad to see efforts being made to address it

[godelski]

I don't agree with tracking kids but you're being silly. I ditched in high school and my parents didn't find out. This is true for plenty of people. Sure, it was 20 years ago but we had cellphones too. It's not like we were in the dark ages and schools couldn't call

[eloisant]

Your high school didn't call your parents to tell you you missed a class?

Where I live we get a phone call the same day if our kids miss a class without prior notice.

[godelski]

Usually no. If you missed multiple yeah, but mostly they didn't care.

Though they started to my senior year. You'd get detention or even suspension if you did it too much. It was especially problematic with us in the AP/IB programs. My older sibling's class (AP/IB) ditched so much it was messing with the state attendance records.

But maybe they didn't call because we were in the advanced programs. The people ditching the most were the ones getting good grades. The school still has a pretty good ranking in California (top 20%).

And frankly, if they called... just delete it off the answering machine before your parents got home.

Or the other thing, get your elder sibling to call you out. Or call in pretending to be the parent or elder sibling. People did that all the time. It's not like the school knows your parents' voice. And well, now that's easy to fake, right?

[TimorousBestie]

Oof, the “my child is my property” parents are not gonna like this.

[Aurornis]

> Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class" rule

That was the general policy before these bans. It was not working.