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Comment by lukev | Hacker News Reader

I'm a little surprised this is newsworthy... this is already the policy at my kid's middle school (NC public schools.)

Is it that uncommon? I get that it's probably harder to enforce into the upper grades...

According to my high school junior, it's laughably impossible to enforce. They have to put their phones in the "phone hotel" at the beginning of the day and can only retrieve them at the end. Ok, so any kid who cares just brings an old phone to drop in the phone hotel and keeps their real phone with them. My son says he doesn't even bother with that trick, as anything he might want to do with his phone during the day (which is mostly either message friends or scroll social media) he can do with the computer he is required to have in class.

Most schools allow phones outside of class time. This policy bans phones on school grounds altogether

What district and how enforced is it? My mother is a teacher in CMS and while it’s a policy there it’s hardly ever enforced….mianly due to parents. When I grew up in NC (private school) you weren’t allowed to have phones in the class either and if caught you either had to give to the teacher or be sent to the principals office if you refused to comply. If you still didn’t comply you got suspended. Most would just give to the teacher if you got caught.

Meanwhile I would bring my PSP to school and just leave it in my locker as it was the perfect MP3 device to walk home from school with, or use it for football/track game days.

Same here. Our public school here in Menlo Park doesn't allow smartphones to be used at school, and I think even Apple Watches are technically prohibited.

Just have a jammer on school premises and use mac auth for the wifi in addition to the the metal detectors at the entrance.

teachers/faculty?

Laws?

The jammer will get you a visit from the friendly people at the FCC.

Much easier to just make your school have some thick walls that prevent cell signals :)

you don't need thick, just wrap the school in chicken wire like old houses.

If schools want jammers the FCC will make an exception and guidelines.

Even if fac/staff had a way around this, it would wreak havoc on parents and other visitors. I can't volunteer at my kid's school if it means I would be unreachable by my other kid's school. Or my spouse/doctor/etc.

I’m not really disagreeing, but - that was absolutely normal and near-universal just 15 years ago.

Yes, people had different ways of dealing with things in the past, but things are different now. I recall seeing a comment on HN last week that said the commenter ignored a call assuming it was spam, and was only alerted to the fact that his kid was in the hospital when someone from the school showed up at his door.

People assume they can reach you by phone these days, especially if you're the parent of young-ish children.

> People assume they can reach you by phone these days, especially if you're the parent of young-ish children.

Sure. But in this story the school fell back to the "old-fashioned" way and sent someone along to the guy's house. It seems clear that the guy got along just fine without being reachable via telephone.

IIRC the commenter regretted not being reachable by phone, and was cautioning others not to ignore calls that look like spam! But hey, if you think a school will go for cell phone blockers, be sure to try to convince one and let us know how it goes!

> ...if you think a school will go for cell phone blockers...

That's a non-sequitur. My assertion was that the fellow in the story got along just fine without being reachable by phone. He may have regretted how he came to become unreachable by phone, but he received the relevant information in a timely manner.

OK, but if you've elevated phones to that level, is it any surprise that 13 and 14 year olds also see them as indispensable?

Sounds illegal.

Very. Jammers would also block emergency calls, which is pretty serious. Imagine the lawsuit when a kid has, say, a diabetic episode and the 911 call was blocked by a teacher's jammer.

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