Cell phone jamming in schools.

I'm trying to figure this out. Schools want to jam cell phones. FCC says it's illegal. Schools say phones are illegal. Parents are outraged. I for one am ok with them jamming the cell phones. What the hell do kids need cell phones for in school. I went through 12 years of high school plus college and never had a cell phone. Never needed one. Some parents are ridiculous. they need to call 911, they need them in case of emergency. That's bullshit. Our schools are locked up tight, and they have phones everywhere. My kid used his phone to text me yesterday, needed clothes for a presentation. He got caught, lost his phone, warned and detention. He deserved it. He should have been more responsible in knowing what he needed. Wife had to get the phone back. He will not see it until school is out.

Yet parents are "outraged" What the fuck is wrong with parents today?

If kids have to reach out to their parents before 3, they can.

to contact your parents. They will not say no.

Staff doesn't have time to deal with the, I gotta call home because....

The kosher phone is stripped down to its original function: making and receiving calls. There's no text messaging, no Internet access, no video options, no camera. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2006-03-31-kosher-phone_x.htm
These take away all the problems presented by cell phones in school.

nt

And was stunned that none of the teachers did anything to stop her. The schools should be allowed to jam the phones. The kids are there to learn, not to chat with friends during class. My son has a cell, but he knows enough to leave it home.

What the hell do kids need paper for? clay tablets worked fine for me and I turned out OK. They just use it to send notes to each other anyway. The schools should be able to outlaw paper. What the fuck is wrong with those parents who give their kids paper to go to school?





Oh, btw, :sarcasm:

Newsflash: Across the country, many teachers are having to purchase PAPER and other materials because parents AREN'T paying for them.

But they pay for cell phones?

Wow. :eyes:

I simply hate the argument "If it good enough for ME when I was in school, it should be good enough for those kids today!"

Cell phones are essential tools for belonging to the new society. Fight it all you want, but that's the way things are going. Perhaps the schools should start incorporating them into the teaching tools available. Texting tests and twittering "factoids" about history, geography, and science. At least the students will read it, whether or not they retain any of it.

Besides, the safety of having a cell phone not to mention the convenience of keeping up with scheduling changes, trips to a friends house, tracking where your child is and granting/not granting approval of after school activities is simply overwhelming. I've done it both ways (no cell / cell) and the cell option is WAAAY better. If the school "jammed" the
cell phones (which might not be legal, btw), I would be one of the parents raising hell.

However, my child (actually my niece that I am raising) has been taught when she can use the phone and when it's not appropriate... oh lordy!!! parents have to teach personal responsibility! My stars!!! the Horrors! Much better to remove the options than require some personal responsibility!!! :sarcasm:

I don't think that they should 'jam' the phones. I think that goes too far. it'd also affect the teacher's phones, and emergencies happen etc.

At a certain level personal responsibility needs to be learned by kids.

When I was in school if you passed a note and got caught you got punished. if you get caught texting in school it should be the same thing. You're not paying attention. The kids aren't there to gab. They're there to pay attention. Keep the phone on vibrate in your pocket. If you get caught texting the phone should be confiscated at least till the end of the day.

When I was in high school the big thing was walkmans, the old cassette tape ones...If you got caught using one in school they'd confiscate it. They weren't allowed. You could HAVE one. You just couldn't USE it.

It's basic social learning. It's not appropriate to text in class, just like it's not appropriate to do so in a meeting if your'e supposed to be paying attention. it's rude, inconsiderate, and should be punished in high schoolers. yes there are exceptions to the rules in real life as adults, but kids need to learn basic ettitque somehow.

Jamming them is wrong, but teachers should confiscate any cellphone they see if people are texting in school. It's that simple. I'm not afraid of using technology either, I just think that we shouldn't forget that technology doesn't overwrite our humanity.

Schools do not need to jam phones, they need to enforce rules.

I'm all for cell phones in schools. I know school shootings are rare, but when the kids need the phones in an emergency and they are jammed...all hell is gonna break loose. Better safe than sorry.

Second thing is where are the parents on this. If a kid is using the phone in school and they are being irresponsible then they need to get their phone taken away till the end of the year. If the parents don't get their shit together and punish the kid then they'll have to keep buying phones.

Simple.

If a parent is doing his/her job properly, s/he will check the bill every now and then to see the times of calls/texts. If a lot of the communication is done during school hours, then do your job as a parent and take the phone away or set limits!!!

institutionalize their kids while they go off to work or their day rather than actually teach personal responsibility AND allowing kids to grow. Will some kids abuse the freedom, yup... but the majority will not, especially if the parents take an active role in monitoring what their kids do. Cell phones, Ipods, computers, TVs, transistor radios. All were "evil" in their day, all were to be "banned" by nazi leaning parents (actually, people too lazy to be parents). All such bans failed to stem the tide of technology.

And the first thing we tell the students to do is to turn off their cell phones. Why?

- It might alert the gunmen to their safe location,

- To avoid panic if it is just a drill.

and more importantly;

- the last thing you would need to do in that kind of situation is to draw parents and other potential victims into the school.


The students at columbine did have cell phones, and were calling news stations left and right. I remember it very vividly.

Guns are now illegal in schools. They're "Gun free zones" doncha know.:sarcasm:

Cell phones in the hands of students will be a nuisance to staff, and a huge distraction for the kids. Allowing that tech in schools brings with it a host of problems.

But cell phones are sold, in part, as safety devices. I wouldn't want to be the school administrator who had ordered jamming that prevented a student's being able to call for help in one of those extremely rare emergencies.

jamming simply removes one of many ways students can not pay attention, but doesn't teach anything.

Don't worry little Johnnie and Susie... you don't have to exercise any discipline! We'll just do it for you!

level with her daughters and their friends. Pretty smutty stuff, according to her.

I think cell phones should be kept in lockers and only used by the kids after school or for real emergencies, but I don't think there is any need for them in a classroom. If there are no lockers, ban them from the school.

Seriously, this entirely strikes me as the cat already being out of the bag. The technology's there, and that's not changing. All that jamming cell phones would do is create one more thing that wealthy schools can afford to do and poorer schools can't. Completely aside from the issues involved around treating kids like prisoners, and the possibility of genuine emergency calls.

addicted to the damn cell phones.

If parents need a kid in an emergency, they need to call the school, not the kid. Why the hell are they too stupid to get that?

If the kid needs something from the parent, there are still pay phones in most schools. The rest will usually allow the kid to call from the office.

This has been an ongoing problem in middle schools and high schools, especially. Kids are not using these things for emergencies. This is the new way to pass notes in class and some kids are using them to make drug deals and this stuff has been going on since pagers came out.

Any kid caught with one of those things in class needs to have it confiscated.

Jamming rf communications is not to be tolerated in a free society. At no time, at no place and not under any circumstances. That is what is done by repressive governments that restrict the rights of the people. If anything qualifies for a slippery slope argument, this is it.
Schools need to think of some other way to get their students to behave appropriately.

I think they're mostly worried about cellphones detonating bombs.

With an "enemy" that has yet to strike. Where is the enemy in a public school?

...the school admins need to find another way...My daughter's school allows phones, but during class they MUST be off and in lockers...any phone that rings during class gets confiscated...It works fine at her school...

screw a jamming device...
just take them away on first sight!

we had cell phones in the 90s when i was in high school(late 90s) and it was well known you didnt bring that crap out in class. hallways, sure... lunch time... sure... but if that crap came out in class it was GONE and you could get it at the end of the day.

Cell phones are here to stay and this is the better way to deal with them. Using a pay phone - please!!! I am an old fuck and I haven't used a pay phone in years - I have a cell phone just like everybody else in America - rich and not rich. As far as 'entitled' - I see EVERYBODY with a cell phone nowadays.

Phones are NOT illegal. Phones in school are against school rules. That's not the same as against the law.

Jamming phone signals is most definitely against the law.

The other day a woman rolled right through a stop sign and almost hit me- guess what, she was talking on her cell phone. She also had a van full of children. I stopped my vehicle and yelled at her to hang up the phone and watch what she was doing. You can't watch the kids, talk on the phone, and safely drive a car all at the same time... and if you think you can you are on your way to causing a tragedy.

She was also setting a bad example for the children.

:)

But yes I agree. If kids need to use the phone there is one in almost every classroom. They don't need cell phones.

But a teacher friend of mine collapsed from a brain aneurism at school about 2 months ago. Another teacher who was with her called 911 on HER cell and the EMTs walked in the building just as the office finally received word that she had collapsed. Doctors said she would have died in just a few more minutes. That cell phone call saved her life.

So no, let's not jam cell phones in schools :)

Jamming them prevents their use in an emergency, and blocks valid users of the phones...

...however any kid seen using one to make a call or text in class should have it confiscated and teach them about proper technology etiquette as well as personal responsibility. No need to jam it. just have a zero tolerance policy.

I'm actually at my high school right now, proxy-ing through the firewall. That's what I do during my TA period, break the rules to access DU. And you know what? I wish our walls weren't built out of brick because then we would get better cell phone signal. Just because YOU didn't need one, doesn't mean that others don't. It allows another method of communication with friends, parents, and in the rare event that you DID need a cellphone, you have one. If there was a school shooting, I know I would text my mom immediately to warn her and promise her I was safe. Or if there was a serious home emergency, cell phones are the easiest and safest way of getting information to me.

30 years ago people also didn't bring laptops to school, but now we see the vital importance of them.

i don't think any should be, but if you attempt to jam some, you are jamming them all, teachers, principals, pe teachers who might need to get medical help, etc.

A cell phone saved a teacher's life.

We recently had a issue where an out of school kid kept calling a kid in school to get money owed so he could buy drugs, finally the kid gave in, met him at the door, police saw, locked down school, checked all cell phones, found another student who had drugs in his person and car, expelled them all. Thank God for cell phones in school ehh?

There kids for Christ sake. You can't shake them down every moment and there going to bend the rules, such as the kid above using du from school. They are young and stupid. Just like the parents who fight this issue, except the parents are old, stupid and naive.

Take the damn phones away when the kids bring them to school. Don't jam the signal.

doesn't mean it needs to be done :)

And when is the last time you got to inject bubble boy into a thread :evilgrin:

But sensible school policies regarding cell phones are very realistic.

Same kind of reasoning that requires students to surrender rescue inhalers or epi pens so they don't need to worry about, y'know, living if they need them Right Now. Why, if we have context and look at circumstances, that's exactly the same as letting them shoot heroin in class! Right? Right?

Ugh.

You get it!

I adamantly disagree with tHe zero tolerance program. It is unbelievably unfair, and stupid.

It's not just a right-wing thing, it's an "I don't want to be bothered with thinking about this" thing for people who deal mainly in emotional reactions, and the right doesn't have a monopoly on that particular line of BS.

I loathe any zero tolerance policy these days, but that's just me following a case in Ontario where a kid's facing criminal charges for defending himself against an unprovoked assault because zero tolerance policies forbid self defense. (The bully wasn't disciplined at all, of course.)

So it surprises me to see much supportfor it here.

Progressive or regressive, it feels good and requires little effort and less thought, lets people say they've done something or saved us all or whatever when all they've done is make things worse for quite a few people they're indifferent to anyway.

It will jam the cell phones of teachers as well. Teachers who may have legit phone business to conduct during their break periods. There's a damn good reason shit like this is illegal and emergency usage is one of those. For those of us involved in sports or other after school activies, having a cell phone was important in case a practice got cancelled or something was running long and we needed to let our folks know.

put the mesh in the ceiling, and walls around rooms.

the cages will stop ALL irradiation, and will not suck any power to maintain.
the kids can use their phone outside the room or near the window (also "cage" the window blinds).

the initial costs will be high, but compared to a jammer, which I S illegal, you have passive, non-powered, LEGAL stopping of ALL RF signals.

The kids get a break from being irradiated by everything in the universe, and the teachers get a legal cell-free zone.

just a thought.

otherwise I agree with most posts, this sounds like a bitter-old-man post.

Parents who do their job have little to worry about, with their kids.

and .. hell, kids will be kids! they will always find a way. that's what they do... hell that's what I did!

why do people pretend that when they were young, they were prefect vestal virgins?

marks = suckers = consumers = sheep = Yahoos = Americans

Plus it would suck for the adults who work in the school. Even in non-emergencies, what if the kid's after school activity gets canceled and he needs to let a parent know?

I don't know if OUTRAGE is exactly warranted, but I certainly think the cell phones shouldn't be jammed.

Perhaps not in the classroom, however, they serve a great purpose.

For instance, there are times when a student may need to contact a parent after a school event in order to obtain a ride (if the parent cannot attend the entire event). Many times a school event can last many hours, such as when there is an away sporting or academic event. I would also think that it would be comforting for both parent and child in a walking/bussing situation.

or they are confiscated and the parents have to come to pick them up...

It doesn't bother me one bit, if I need to get contacted, there's a way. If I need to make an outside call, there's a way. If I want to use my cell phone, I have to step outside of the building, not even 10 ft away and it works great. Big deal!

Kids don't need to be contacting people during school hours, if you need to call your parent, you can just walk outside and use your phone. I'm all for jamming. I think kids should be able to bring their phones to school, but they should not be turned on during school hours. If jamming is in place, there's no reason for it to be on until you step outside of the building on your way home or whatever.

not been deprived, nor stopped from using office phone if they needed to get a hold of me, nor needed it for a columbine situation in school.

there cell phones that are just phones. No texting and no pictures both of which are huge problems in schools.


http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2006-03-31-kosher-phone_x.htm

The kosher phone is stripped down to its original function: making and receiving calls. There's no text messaging, no Internet access, no video options, no camera.