Phones in Bins, Not in Class: The Halfway Phone Ban

A win is a win. The board has adopted a new policy for the coming school year that will not allow kids to have their cell phones in class in the Billings high schools. I have been complaining about this for years and have provided all the data from schools that have implemented it, showing positive results.

The part I don't like is that kids are allowed to bring their phones, but they must leave them at the front of the room when they enter and pick them up when they leave. Here's my question: if they are not allowed to use them in the classroom, then why can they even bring them there in the first place? At the end of class, you'll have 20 kids going through a pile of phones to retrieve theirs, then nose-to-phone for the next 8 minutes between classes, and then it starts all over again.

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A small win is a small win, but this policy could have been much better. The schools already disallow phones in junior high, where they must be kept in lockers. We have already preconditioned the kids about phones in school, so why not carry that policy into high school? They would still be able to use them at lunch. I have no problem with that, but it's going to be a phone and text frenzy between classes now.

I know the teachers are happy with the no-phones-in-class policy, but I don't think they will like being in charge of ensuring the collection and drop-off procedures go smoothly.

See you tomorrow at 5.