This was the case in schools 15+ years ago, but recently a lot have had more problems with parents complaining about teachers taking away their child's phone.

Part of it is that phones are more expensive, a $900 iPhone vs a $100 Nokia.

Another is (perhaps founded) anxiety about their child needing to have a way to communicate to the outside world in an emergency situation like a school shooting.

Also people get used to things, and modern parents have grown used to being able to text and check on their child any time of day at any location versus sending them off on their bike with no phone and telling them to be back by the time the street lights come on.

It's definitely a problem that needs to be addressed and it needs strong backing from higher levels of administration so it doesn't become an argument of each teacher versus angry parents.

▲

arcfour 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Another is (perhaps founded) anxiety about their child needing to have a way to communicate to the outside world in an emergency situation like a school shooting.

Yes, a situation less likely to happen than being struck by lightning. Very founded!

Not to mention you can just, I dunno, borrow anyone else's phone and have one or two phone numbers memorized? Assuming if they are in an emergency and alone they are not going to be saved by a phone.

	▲	stetrain 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's rare, but scary, and humans are often bad at judging things that are rare but scary. I'm not saying it's a good net reason to let kids keep their phones, it's just founded in some real things that have happened in this country, including a famous case where kids were calling/texting parents while police waited for over an hour before entering, while blocking parents who had arrived from entering the school. Letting kids have their phones isn't an actual solution to that problem, but right now in a lot of places that's the argument each teacher has to have with each parent. It's better for the state, county, etc. to pass an explicit policy about phones in the classroom so teachers can just point to that policy instead of having to rehash the argument with every parent.