Many kids bring their cell phones into the classroom.
The Center for Disease Control's 2008 Wireless Substitution report shows that one of every seven Americans place and receive most, if not all, of their calls on a wireless phone. The increase in cell phone usage has expanded into our children's schools. Many children in today's society carry a cell phone on their person to school. This increase of usage and change of demographic has created a debate in many schools.
School Emergencies
The increase of school shootings and threats has encouraged parents to allow their children to carry cell phones to school. Cell phones have successfully been used in schools to call in threats and activities to emergency officials. These calls have often saved lives and reduced the number of casualties resulting from these dangers. The video and camera features that many cell phones carry have been used to provide direct feed to officials, aiding officials in safely counteracting threatening activity.
Reduced Emergency Response
While these positive benefits have helped to reduce threatening activities, many officials and parents oppose cell phones in school. Many officials oppose this usage because cell phones have the potential to detonate real bombs with their signals. These officials also state that student cell phone usage can impede with the official's safety response by accelerating parental response to the site "during times when officials may be attempting to evacuate students to another site."
Cell phones have been known to overload calling systems during crisis situations. Officials and teachers agree that student cell phone usage could block their attempts to providing crisis information and hinder crisis team action by overloading the systems with student calls. School crisis teams often use cell phones for emergency communication during critical times.
Unethical Usage
While cell phones are known to keep students readily accessible to emergency and parental contact, they are also known for their unethical usage. Many students have used their cell phones to share answers to tests and quizzes, and to report inaccurate and offensive information about other students and their school. Cell phones can be distractions in the school environment, evading classroom time and reducing student's academic success.
Cell Phone Abuse
Many children have found themselves to be victims of cell phone abuse. Students often use cell phones to spread rumors and misinformation. This misinformation can be difficult for the victim to digest and can be quite stressful for a young child to comprehend. This act of misinformation has resulted in the death of several children after their private information and unsubstantiated information had been spread with the use of cell phones. State and local officials have begun to develop laws that establish strong consequences for the spread of personal information. These consequences include fines, jail time and possible sex offender status.
Immediate Response
Children who are responsible for making their own way home after the school day or have medical issues greatly benefit from the use of cell phones. Children who walk home from school are immediately able to contact their parents and inform them of their current location. Children with medical issues can use their phone to request medical attention immediately instead of trying to make it to the office to place their call. Cell phone usage eliminates the additional wait or lag time that is involved when using a office or official school phone.
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