Cell Phone Restrictions

Should the cell phone ban be lifted?

“Put your cellphone away before I take it.”  

“Are those headphones I see?”

“Give me your phone. You can get it from the office at the end of day.”

These are words said almost every day by teachers at Streetsboro High School. Along with these statements come moans of frustration from students, mumbles of words under their breath, and a flutter of lids as the students roll their eyes in response.

As addiction to our pocket computers intensifies, so does the hassle for everyone, especially teens, constantly wanting to be on their phones. Because of this addiction, many schools have placed rules and restrictions on phones. Here at SHS, students are not allowed to be on their phones unless given permission from a staff members. Phones are supposed to be “off and away.”

Students caught with their phone may have them confiscated and and put in the office until the end of the day. If caught a second time, parents have to pick up the phone from the office. If caught a third time, parents have to come get it, and students also receive afterhours.

Sophomore Anna Klink said she feels the phone policy “is not fair,” that students should be allowed to use their phones. She continues, “We are limited on the stuff that we can do because of the school computers and most the time the wifi is down.”

Senior Jeremy Grabowski said people would misuse their phones if allowed to be on them all the time, thus making it a distraction in class and taking the focus off of school work.

Allowing students to use their phones in class could be beneficial, because even though we have chromebooks and computers in labs, a limited number of them are available.

Students complain all the time about the chromebooks, saying how they don’t like typing on them because of the difference in the keyboards. One of the differences is instead of the Caps key there is a search key; that really throws people off when typing because a lot of us type faster using the Caps key.  Another difference is the feel of the chromebook keys. They are slim and close down, but the desktop keyboards are thicker and clunkier which we are used too. It almost feels like we are more in control in a way.    

If we were allowed to use phones during class, then nobody would have to worry about not being able to get a chromebook, or not liking the keyboard, because they could just type on their phones.

Research is a huge part of school. Lots of times the school’s wifi is down and the computers become useless. With their phones, the students could still do their work even if the wifi goes down by using mobile data.

We currently are not permitted to use our phones without teacher permission, but a lot of teachers say we can’t use our phones at all. If we could get one or two class periods where we can use our phones, then we could possibly get more work done and be less tempted to use them during classes when not allowed.