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I'd like to be able to call my kid in the event of an emergency. I understand banning general cell phone use during class hours, but it's infringing on civil li

I'd like to be able to call my kid in the event of an emergency. I understand banning general cell phone use during class hours, but it's infringing on civil liberties to force an unrestricted ban

mino 9y ago
Or, in an emergency you could simply call the school. You know, they have a phone.
jacquesm 9y ago
Civil liberties and cell phone usage in school have nothing to do with each other. Emergencies are dealt with using emergency channels, cell phones are a distraction in school and push kids into the 'upgrade' cycle or they'll be considered not cool because they have old hardware. Clothing and shoes are bad enough. I'm so glad I wasn't a child in the age of constant parental supervision and communications. And I'll definitely leave my kids free from that. School is there to learn and to socialize with our peers, it is not there to be an extension of parental control.
praneshp 9y ago
Eh, call the school instead of disturbing all other kids for your self-proclaimed emergency.
- watwut 9y ago
  You mean demand that teachers do your personal messagers? That is entitlement a bit higher then calling kid during lunch or break - this ban is specifically about lunch and break phone usage.
  - function_seven 9y ago
    In an actual emergency? Sure. "Entitlement" is a strange way to frame it. Emergencies should be rare, the school can accommodate them when they occur.
    - watwut 9y ago
      "Disturbing all other kids" is strange way to frame phone call during lunch or break too. A bit dramatic since the supposedly disturbed kids were not disturbed from anything. And there is nothing wrong or disturbing about those even if the message is ordinary "go home alone cant come for you today" due to unexpected meeting or deadline. Or "go from school to grandma we will dinner there today" or "wait for me in school I will take you shopping today" change of plans that happen normally. Are they super dangerous emergencies? No. Are they practical to be called about? Yes.
      - makapuf 9y ago
        Can those SMS be checked when just outside of school ? yes. Go back in school in the third case, I'm sure schools can let you get back inside.
        watwut 9y ago
        Yes they can, if the kid remembers to check the phone which is usually unreliable. But even if kid is super reliable, so what? The original argument was "I like to call". Still does not make the call during lunch disturbing to other kids. Going from work to school just so that you can ask them to let you inside, just so that you can tell the kid to wait for you after school instead of going home is ridiculous suggestion and disturbing for everyone including employer.
gsich 9y ago
What is an emergency? If you call for minor stuff, your kid will start to ignore your calls.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  That applies to teenage years too, when kids start to mark clear boundaries between their world and parents' world. Keep calling with bullshit trivia at the most socially or practically inconvenient moments, and your kid will soon stop picking up.
wiz21c 9y ago
Come on, is it that hard to understand that : 1/ When the kids are at school, the school take care of them 2/ If your kid has an emergency at school, the school takes care of it (mostly they'll call the emergency service and afterwards call you) 3/ if you have an emergency, a simple call to the school is more than enough to have both the school and you manage it. The people in school are just as good as you to manage your kid in these situations Trust the school.
Yetanfou 9y ago
A long time ago in a galaxy very close there once was a people who managed to get through their lives without having access to mobile telecommunications. In contrast to what many of you readers might guess they actually did very well without, they did not stumble from one emergency into the next and their stress levels were generally lower than those of mobile-carrying people in our own galaxy. I was born in that galaxy, I vividly remember it. If my train was late I made my way to a rectangular box on the platform and used the archaic device attached to one of its walls - it was called a payphone, think of an iPhone with a handset but without touchscreen and a physical coin slot to make you pay for whatever you did with it instead of the digital coin slot in the iPhone - to tell whomever I was travelling to that I would be late. At school there was someone ready to answer the telephone for all those emergencies which people keep on expecting nowadays. It might have been that things in that galaxy were more benign than they are in ours but for some reason those emergencies were few and far in between, leaving that person free to do other things.
mankash666 9y ago
I'd wager that most respondents to this aren't patents with kids in schools. There's overwhelming support to allow parents to contact their kids without having to go through an intermediary at my kid's school, so who are all these people making academic arguments that are irrelevant?
- praneshp 9y ago
  FWIW, I went to a school for 14 years. I don't mind discredit for not being a parent but my arguments aren't academic. Also honest question: I'd also like to see the overwhelming support you claim there is.

I'd like to be able to call my kid in the event of an emergency. I understand banning general cell phone use during class hours, but it's infringing on civil liberties to force an unrestricted ban

mino 9y ago

Or, in an emergency you could simply call the school. You know, they have a phone.

jacquesm 9y ago

Civil liberties and cell phone usage in school have nothing to do with each other. Emergencies are dealt with using emergency channels, cell phones are a distraction in school and push kids into the 'upgrade' cycle or they'll be considered not cool because they have old hardware. Clothing and shoes are bad enough. I'm so glad I wasn't a child in the age of constant parental supervision and communications. And I'll definitely leave my kids free from that. School is there to learn and to socialize with our peers, it is not there to be an extension of parental control.

praneshp 9y ago

Eh, call the school instead of disturbing all other kids for your self-proclaimed emergency.

watwut 9y ago
You mean demand that teachers do your personal messagers? That is entitlement a bit higher then calling kid during lunch or break - this ban is specifically about lunch and break phone usage.
- function_seven 9y ago
  In an actual emergency? Sure. "Entitlement" is a strange way to frame it. Emergencies should be rare, the school can accommodate them when they occur.
  - watwut 9y ago
    "Disturbing all other kids" is strange way to frame phone call during lunch or break too. A bit dramatic since the supposedly disturbed kids were not disturbed from anything. And there is nothing wrong or disturbing about those even if the message is ordinary "go home alone cant come for you today" due to unexpected meeting or deadline. Or "go from school to grandma we will dinner there today" or "wait for me in school I will take you shopping today" change of plans that happen normally. Are they super dangerous emergencies? No. Are they practical to be called about? Yes.
    - makapuf 9y ago
      Can those SMS be checked when just outside of school ? yes. Go back in school in the third case, I'm sure schools can let you get back inside.
      - watwut 9y ago
        Yes they can, if the kid remembers to check the phone which is usually unreliable. But even if kid is super reliable, so what? The original argument was "I like to call". Still does not make the call during lunch disturbing to other kids. Going from work to school just so that you can ask them to let you inside, just so that you can tell the kid to wait for you after school instead of going home is ridiculous suggestion and disturbing for everyone including employer.

gsich 9y ago

What is an emergency? If you call for minor stuff, your kid will start to ignore your calls.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
That applies to teenage years too, when kids start to mark clear boundaries between their world and parents' world. Keep calling with bullshit trivia at the most socially or practically inconvenient moments, and your kid will soon stop picking up.

wiz21c 9y ago

Come on, is it that hard to understand that : 1/ When the kids are at school, the school take care of them 2/ If your kid has an emergency at school, the school takes care of it (mostly they'll call the emergency service and afterwards call you) 3/ if you have an emergency, a simple call to the school is more than enough to have both the school and you manage it. The people in school are just as good as you to manage your kid in these situations Trust the school.

Yetanfou 9y ago

A long time ago in a galaxy very close there once was a people who managed to get through their lives without having access to mobile telecommunications. In contrast to what many of you readers might guess they actually did very well without, they did not stumble from one emergency into the next and their stress levels were generally lower than those of mobile-carrying people in our own galaxy. I was born in that galaxy, I vividly remember it. If my train was late I made my way to a rectangular box on the platform and used the archaic device attached to one of its walls - it was called a payphone, think of an iPhone with a handset but without touchscreen and a physical coin slot to make you pay for whatever you did with it instead of the digital coin slot in the iPhone - to tell whomever I was travelling to that I would be late. At school there was someone ready to answer the telephone for all those emergencies which people keep on expecting nowadays. It might have been that things in that galaxy were more benign than they are in ours but for some reason those emergencies were few and far in between, leaving that person free to do other things.

mankash666 9y ago

I'd wager that most respondents to this aren't patents with kids in schools. There's overwhelming support to allow parents to contact their kids without having to go through an intermediary at my kid's school, so who are all these people making academic arguments that are irrelevant?

praneshp 9y ago
FWIW, I went to a school for 14 years. I don't mind discredit for not being a parent but my arguments aren't academic. Also honest question: I'd also like to see the overwhelming support you claim there is.