Don’t worry, Zoe just found it.
I love how swearing at the person who grabs your phone while you’re in the middle of a call is now considered a “tantrum”.
Yup.
I wonder–and maybe it’s been mentioned somewhere–does this school have a pay phone? Are students allowed to use it at lunch break, without administrators monitoring who they’re talking to? If so, isn’t the biggest difference between a call made on a cell phone and a call made on the pay phone the fact that the school is getting a cut of the profits in the latter case?
“Verbally assault”? That’s even better than “throwing a tantrum”. Kudos.
Yes, students should be forgiven for swearing at people who grab their expensive personal possessions out of their hands. Most adults would do the same thing in that situation. And frankly, once an expensive personal possession has been taken against its owner’s will, the owner should be forgiven for not wanting to leave without it.
Now you’re just making things up. The school should not (and, AFAIK, does not) have any liability for what happens as a result of a student using his own phone on his own lunch break.
Yup. Teachers are employees; they’re there of their own free will, and they’re being compensated for their time. That means they should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.
Who said that “arrangements” has to mean that the student receives a message on the cellphone? Hint- the arrangement could have meant that students would be allowed access to a receive calls on an office phone from the parent during their lunch hour. Or an exception to the policy could have been made to allow this student to keep his phone on and receive such a call during his lunch period. Again, exceptions to the policy are not in the policy, by definition.
Because although exceptions are made all the time in every area of life, they are generally not advertised. My siblings and I bought my mother theatre tickets for Christmas. Tickets said no refund, no exchange. My mother found out she would need to have surgery that week- they made an exception to their policy and exchanged them. How in the world could anyone not know they could ask for an exception? And how is the school district or principal to know the circumstances of every kid who might need an exception to some policy if the kid or the parent or guardian never brings the subject up?
Probably not. I have two kids in two different high schools. I would be utterly shocked if anyone in their schol knew what my husband and I did for a living. Sure, it’s in the paperwork somewhere, but the teacher wasn’t looking at his file. And the fact that she was in Iraq may not even have been in the file.
Or the many jobs where employees are not permitted to receive personal calls except in an emergency- and this wasn’t an emergency. Important, yes, but not an emergency
He got a warning- to end the call. Had he done that, he probably wouldn’t have gotten any punishment after he explained the circumstances. He probably wouldn’t have gotten any punishment even after refusing to hang up, if he had been able to control himself.
And by the way, I’m not expecting the student to plan for every contingency. Just for one that he had every reason to expect ( mom did know she was calling during his lunch break and not math class, right?) and the school didn’t. Just like if a student can’t wear the required shorts for gym for religious reasons, it’s her responsibilty to inform the school of the problem, not theirs to investigate every detail of child’s background to see if the child might need an exception from a general rule.
Is it policy? I saw nothing that says it really is, except the report, dated 6 May. I didn’t notice any revision to the policy that clearly and officially says it and makes it so. Did I just miss it? The vitriol is in my eyes right now. heh heh. So far, one student claims she was never told. It’s possible. She has no interest in this case either way (unlike the student, teacher, or admins) and so has no reason to lie for either side. That could lead me to conclude nobody was told. If it is policy, the school or District has the duty to convey it. By not doing it, they broke policy. If it is policy, then Guidance should have been doing their job and contacted the student (let’s call him Army brat). Apparently something was “missed”. Barring that, any teacher could have given it a passing mention during any class for everyone’s benefit, in about a minute. They (any one of them) could have told the student beforehand, in a timely manner, or spoken for him during the punishment phase. They did not. If it is not policy and there are no “provisions”, then the policy should be revised to reflect reality. That’s called management. Instead, the entire burden to know all the regulations and all the “provisions” is falling on the person most likely to know the least about anything.
I forget - Did anyone even tell him about the no phone rule, or did that get dropped on him at the time of the infraction? Given the apparent lack of “guidance” it’s an even bet he wouldn’t have known that either, since it was lunch time and he was outside the building. He may have thought he would be OK.
I never operated that way. As a E-5, and later on in both private industry and government, a very useful and wise outlook was:
If you know what to do and screw up, it’s all on you. If you didn’t know and you screw up it’s my fault. That’s called responsibility and leadership. To say “it isn’t my job” got you in the shit real fast.
That’s the Real World.
He didn’t know that his mom was going to call.
He didn’t know the teacher would flip out and grab the phone.
The student didn’t expect any of this to happen, and I seriously doubt it even crossed his mom’s mind that calling her son from Iraq would get him in trouble. And it wouldn’t have, had the teacher and school officials been rational.
I’m just going by what the school official says. I don’t think it is a written policy, so we just have his word for it.
If an adult decides the "rules don’t apply to me because of my special situation, but I didn’t ask for an exemption ", violates the rule (for which the normal penalty is apparently confiscation of the phone until dismissal), is warned, ignores the warning, gets the phone confiscated and then starts cursing and won’t calm down, the person wasn’t acting like an adult from the point where he or she violated the rule and somehow expected the consequence to not occur. I’m sure some adults would start yelling and cursing. And most would have requested some sort of arrangement in advance
And what if the school phones are down, and it is an emergency?
Don’t say it can’t happen. In fact, it happened in this very case - so many calls were made to the school about their bad behavior that the school unplugged the phones.
So, the school phones are down, you can only reach your wife by cell phone, it is an emergency… and you are fine with the principal grabbing the cell phone from your wife. Right.
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He may not have known his mom was going to call on that particular day- but if he didn’t expect that she might call him while he was at school, then why was the phone turned on to begin with? And I can’t see why it wouldn’t have crossed his mother’s mind. I certanly would have expected my kids to get in trouble if they were talking to me on their cellphone during school hours- because, you see, both of their schools have similar rules- phones can’t be visible and must be turned off even during lunch and free periods. I know the school rules, and I expect my kids to follow them, so even if there was some sort of emergency , I wouldn’t call on the cell- because if the cell is turned off as it’s supposed to be, they couldn’t answer anyway.
Calling either the teacher’s or the student’s actions assault really stretchs the term beyond any reasonable meaning. Grabbing a phone out of someone’s hand is not assault. Neither is swearing at somebody. Let’s focus on what actually happened rather than inflate it.
I for one, didn’t say I had a problem with some sort of punishment for the cursing and swearing. I just can’t shake the feeling that the whole thing should have been handled better, and we still don’t have the entire true story. What would have happened if, instead of taking/grabbing/whatever did or didn’t happen, a different approach had been taken to start off with?
This is ASSUMING that Army Brat did in fact tell the teacher it was his mother on the phone. Let him finish the call, give him the stern look, and tell him “My office. NOW.” And then give him a warning, with a better explanation of the regulations? Maybe even tell him about the provisions Dr. Phillips says exist (if they even do) and tell him to do it RIGHT in the future? You’ve maintained control. You’ve exerted discipline. You’ve given direction and guidance. You’ve avoided a direct confrontation and still get what you wanted. You’ve kept respect and let him keep his.
Now this is ASSUMING Army Brat is lying from the very start. Assume he never told the teacher the nature of the call. Assume he went right into a fit. Keep your distance. You’ve watched him blow it, now you don’t blow it. You document it and have it verified, witnessed, “officialized”. You report it, and then proceed to crucify him.
The confiscation of contraband has been the norm in schools for practically forever. Whether it’s chewing gum, cigarettes, baseball cards, Pokemon cards, or game boys. It doesn’t matter how much it costs, who it belongs to, or whether it’s legal on the outside for the student to possess. The cell phone was contraband in this instance. Deal with it.
Should a teacher be allowed to confiscate anything from a student? I don’t want to turn this into another one of your kids’ rights arguments- can you see the practical difficulties in forbidding teachers the ability to do this?
SteveG1- policies are written down. Exceptions to policies are usually not. It is the obligation of the student to see whether he can negotiate an exemption or compromise, not the duty of the school to seek out every student to see whether they are eligible.What’s the problem here? I am still not seeing any unreasonable behavior on the part of the administration.
I am also unwilling to believe that he was unaware of the no phone rule, simply because in my experience, both parent and student are required to sign a student handbook stating that they have read and will comply with all school regulations.
and Dead Alive- you overlook the fact that my wife’s phone is always out of reach and hearing during school hours. If the kid had complied with policy, his would have been as well…and none of this drama would be taking place. You can backtrack all you want and talk about how to deal with it since he went ahead and broke the rules, but I’m not a big fan of anyone profiting from breaking the rules.
He doesn’t need to know all the provisions. He needs to know the rules, and he needs to know to ask for an exception ,not to expect to grant himself one. I mean, really. My kid’s schools have a bunch of rules including required uniforms. Nowhere in the handbook is there a listing of exceptions or even a statement that exceptions can be made. Does that mean I can’t ask for an exception if the uniforms are destroyed in a house fire?
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Now you think he didn’t know about the rule because nobody told him that exceptions were possible. Every school my kids have attended gave them a handbook. In fact their schools also required a slip signed by me and the kid acknowleding that we read it. Most schools probably don’t require the slip, but I be shocked if any school didn’t distribute the rules and policies.
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But unless it somehow comes out that the student had no idea about the cell phone rule, then he knew what to do- leave the phone turned off.
Because a phone isn’t useful unless it’s turned on. I don’t know anyone under 40 who ever turns their phone off except at the theater.
During lunch break? Not unless it’s illegal, interferes with the school’s operation, or poses some kind of threat. A cell phone is none of those.
During class? Sure, if it’s a distraction, as long as it’s returned by the end of class and kept someplace where the student can be sure of its safety.
No, but at the same time if you show up for school in the wrong clothes without asking, I would hope the teacher wouldn’t rip your clothes off.
You understand that there are several reasons why schools are bannnig phones, right? Off the top of my head:
- cheating in class (texting)
- distractions during instruction
- coordinating drug and other illicit activity (this is the biggie)- remember when beepers were the ‘big thing’ and eventually got banned? It’s not because kids were getting paged by their moms in Iraq.
Lunch time is not ‘free from school policy’ time. It’s not a place of employment, where your lunch time is your own. The school can dictate whatever policy it likes (within our current legal framework) from the hours of 8am-4pm, nonstop, and can even extend those policies to afterschool activities. This is largely because, as **Zoe **pointed out, they are increasingly being held accountable by parents for more and more, and this is their CYA strategy.
Question- you have a high school senior, 18 years old. Legally, he can smoke. should he be allowed to smoke on campus? If a teacher finds ciggs in plain view on his desk, or he has them out in the lunchroom on campus, can they be confiscated?
1 and 2 can be solved by banning phone use during class. 3, frankly, should be none of the school’s concern - they can choose to allow phone calls or not, but they have no business regulating the content of those calls.
It should be. Students are not prisoners.
If and when a news story pops up about a school being held accountable for the content of a student’s phone call, I’ll be right there protesting it with you.
The school has a right to ban smoking on its property. If they don’t allow him to smoke on campus, they should let him leave campus during break and find a place where smoking is allowed.
No. The school can ask him to put them away, but it has no right to steal them.
Even the teachers in our school system for many years were not considered off duty during lunch. That was something that we had to negotiate in our contract. Students were never free to roam about at will.
Little Nemo, profanity is considered verbal assault whether it is directed at a student or a teacher.
Confiscation of the cigarettes would depend on what the rule is. If the rule is “no smoking,” then the cigarettes can not be confiscated. If the rule is that no cigarettes are allowed on school property (a very unlikely rule), then the cigarettes can be confiscated. I think the “no cigarette” rule is unlikely because visitors to the school would unknowingly be carrying contraband. That would be a hard rule to enforce.
We had weird rules when I was in school. The boys could smoke (as long as they went out back), but the girls couldn’t. We couldn’t talk as we moved through the halls between classes. In elementary school, we couldn’t talk at lunch. You couldn’t go to school if you were married.
I smoked, I kept them in my shirt pocket. Everyone could see them. Nobody even looked sideways at me for it. It was nobody else’s business back then. The rule was no smoking in school. The reasons were for nuisance, health, and fire hazard. Not just because “I said so”. We all knew it. It was made crystal clear. Those who ignored it knew the “crime” and the penalty.
Of course it’s not useful unless it’s turned on. But if the rule ( and I believe the students were told of this rule) is that phones must be turned off while at school, and the student had no expectation that his mother might call during his lunch break, then it’s some set of coincidences that
- his mother happened to know what time his lunch break was
- he accidentally left his cell phone on
and - that was the day his mother chose to call during school hours for the first time.
Much more likely in my opinion, that he told his mother when his lunch break was and left his phone on at least during that time in case she had an opportunity to call. Which means they knew it was a possibilty
Exactly. The school’s policy in this case was very content neutral. What was the problem again?
As for the rest of your post, once again, we’ll have to agree to disagree. Confiscation is a very useful tactic for teachers because it makes the consequences immediate and focused solely on the student. So long as that policy is spelled out clearly, then the student and parents can choose to either comply, find another school, or homeschool. But whining after the fact that it’s unfair (because it now applies to you) is silly.
And, students are not prisoners- but they are not employees, employers, clients, or any other relationship you can throw out. They are in a unique status wherein their parents have ceded some parental rights and responsibilities to the teacher to facilitate their education. As long as they are on campus, their time belongs to the school.
Clear something up for me, someone. Forget the student’s grades for now. Did/does he have a history of being a general asshole? That would be a big factor. Or was this a one time fluke incident? If he was a known moron then it’s done. Otherwise, I’m not so convinced that all is well.