4 ms·

Why do parents need to "check-in" on their kids during school hours? The fact that some parent are calling students in the middle of class is particularly egreg

• chankstein38 3y ago
  Because it's hard to trust that the kids won't be put in a dangerous situation by way of an active shooter. And with some of the incident within the last year it's been clear the school may not notify anyone until hours later.
  • ryan93 3y ago
    Parents can be histrionic. Thats good, your kids are important. Doesn't mean the administration cant decide phones are almost entirely a net negative.
• germinalphrase 3y ago
  Former teacher. There is no reason. Parents can always get in touch with students via the office if there's a legitimate need. That never stopped parents from calling and texting their kids during class time of course.
  • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    The issue is more of what happens after and before school if you aren’t helicoptering them between school in an SUV. In my district, kids take city buses to middle and high school, which I think is fine, but a phone is useful in that case.
  • throwaway50603 3y ago
    As a student (over a decade ago) I had hundreds - maybe even thousands over the 13 years of education, actually - of phone calls with my parents, siblings, grandparents, uncle, friends etc about various stuff I was doing after school, during school (and sometimes instead of school). I'm sure the school office would've loved to handle all the calls for us, lol.
    • germinalphrase 3y ago
      I'm not even arguing kids shouldn't have a phone at all (OP is talking about during school hours), but even so - why would you ever expect the office to do that? Communicate with your parent/child before school to make a plan or establish a routine for meetups as was done for decades before smartphones. It's a fig leaf rationale to keep phones in children's pockets during class.
      • throwaway50603 3y ago
        You said that if there is a legitimate need they can call the school office or have the office call the parents - so I'd expect the office to handle it. For myself it was mostly that parents could simply call me 5 minutes before they picked me up for my dentist appointment (which I had at least monthly for 7 years due to having braces) instead of me waiting somewhere for who knows how long because there was a traffic jam (and missing more schooltime than necessary). They could simply call me/send me a SMS and ask me to pick up my younger siblings when they had unexpected work and couldn't make it in time - but since they respected me as a person, I had to confirm that I will do it and don't have other plans. Obviously, if I saw the question only after school that'd be way too late and they would have to force me into it instead of simply asking the grandparents if I said I can't. Because why the hell shouldn't we use modern technology if it's available to us? Thanks to it we were flexible, and we enjoyed it. Yeah, I also used the phone during class. Because the lessons were shit. Though we had a few very engaging teachers and even though I had zero interest in their subjects, I never used phone in their class. Schools have to improve, taking phones away is just bandaging the symptoms.
        • germinalphrase 3y ago
          Yes, I also appreciate the increased flexibility modern comms afford us, but we do indeed have differing definitions of legitimate need.
          • throwaway50603 3y ago
            And that definition is not up to either schools or teachers, but parents and potentially the students (depending on the parents).