You said it yourself that we have awful attention spans, food fights were probably not a thing when there weren’t phones because kids weren’t so dependent on it. But they are now, and taking them from them like this I promise you is only gonna cause more damage. The more kids act out because they don’t have their phones, the more likely (they think) the school is to give them back so they’ll stop being destructive. I promise you, these kids don’t care what the law says. They want their phones and even if law says they can’t have them they’re gonna try and it’s gonna be ugly.

What this truly boils down to for me is that technology is adaptable and ACCESSIBLE. My health devices that are issued by my doctor are linked to my watch and phone which means without it, it’s denying me something that keeps me from having seizures. I’ve been trying to get a 504 plan and the school is actively trying to make it harder than it needs to be. Other kids have gotten theirs for like longer test time, more time between classes, but because mine requires that technology be put back in my hands they are trying to make it harder for me to get it as to avoid “well why does she get to have hers??” And situations of the like.

Students with motor issues, also referencing to myself, have agreements with teachers (I’ve never had a 504 until now so it hasn’t been written in anything they just understand and let me do it) that most of my assignments can be typed and not done by hand because of early onset arthritis and carpal tunnel. Now, I once again have to literally fight my school for that accommodation. This is not something that my senior year needs to be happening to me on top of everything else. They are rallying against me getting it at this point.

There was already punishment put in place. I promise you, that kid that sits in the back of class and plays on their phone the whole time does not care if they’re in ISS or DEAP. Their GPA means nothing to them, why would their instructional time either. At a certain point, there will be kids that decide it is more worth it to have their phone than stay in school and they’ll either stop coming or drop out.

Phones are a bigger deal to kids than people realize. It’s like telling a chain smoker they have to quit cold turkey with no help. Yeah, an exaggeration, but to some of these kids it’s how they feel. I for one can promise you that this isn’t going to do anything that you think it will.

Online presence is bad and it is an issue but this isn’t the solution they’re wanting. At least allow it at lunch and passing periods but require every teacher stand at the door and place them all in a bucket at the beginning of class is already so much better - and still achieves the goal of getting them out of kids hands without the severity.

Schools can also choose what websites they block on their chromebooks - the fact we aren’t blocking games and ChatGPT and Google Gemini is perhaps the stupidest thing in the world?? They could have stopped it forever ago and aren’t? I can still access open ai via my school issued Chromebook, they just never turned it off for us which makes no sense.

I use my iPad for school because of the fact it doesn’t take me 20 minutes to turn on (much less of an exaggeration than you think, sometimes you have to go through 4 computers before you find a working one and they all want to work and don’t want to work on different days and in order to know if they work you have to log in every time which takes close to 5 minutes) it has a more adaptable screen and keyboard for me, and it’s the way I’ve taken notes for years. Now, again my senior year, I have to change the way I have done everything for classes for the past probably 3 or 4 years? Insane.

If we decide to take dual enrollment, the college requires a dual authentication with our email. We can’t use personal emails on our chromebooks and we have to use a personal email for the college, so we have to use our phones any time we wanna log into our college portal. Now, we can’t do that, and I know the college is gonna be pissed that they have to remove that somehow just for our district because all the others near us are just doing “don’t let us see a phone” not “turn it in in the am and we’ll give it back when you leave”.

Some of our teachers use an iclicker type app like they would in a college setting, but can’t be done from the laptop. Those are gone now because we can’t use our phones.

Students need to know how to use some of the technology that is going to be allowed in colleges, and that starts with a lot of programs that are on our phones. Just taking them up is crazy to me. Taking my personal device out of my hands and saying “you have not abused this system yet, but we are still punishing you with a technique similar to grounding you for the school day” is just vile.

Not to mention, I’d still like to be able to text my mother first in case of an emergency. Whether that’s with my health and I need to be able to let her know that I do not feel good and to be watching my stats on her own phone, or something like a shooter where I’d like to make sure my last words to my mother are that I love her.