schools used to be all about education
Chances are good that a court will stop this, right?
It is an invasion of privacy to seize phones without a good reason.
Not to mention unconstitutional
Instead of going after the drug dealers(who are almost always known to both teacher and student alike) they use PC to make everyone miserable : )
They're talking of banning cell phones at school (or at least in the classroom) altogether in some of our school districts. I can see why. The text messaging has brought cheating to a whole new dimension, and if the classrooms sound anything like the movie theatres with cell phone ringing and chatter, they should be banned.
But can they search a cell phone without a warrant, I wonder? That seems extreme.
Good!
Students don't have the "rights" asserted here.
The distractions are unnecessary.
The phones should be OFF and in their bookbags during class time.
Minors have no "Right to Privacy" Not from a parents point of view.
Cel phones need to be "off" during school, if allowed at all.
This goes a bit far.
Given that this is Mass, I'd think that the school admins would be creative and flood the kid's cell phones with text messages about gay marriage, gay sex, global warming, etc.
Real simple, don't allow any cell phones on campus at any time.
When I was in school you couldn't make a phone call under any circumstances from school, they didn't even allow pay phones within the school.
Kids today seem to think that achool is aomw kind of a social event.
Cell phones should be turned off at school at all times. If they aren't they should be confiscated but do they really need to search them? OTOH, it says if there is a suspicion.
Simple solution: students did just fine for hundreds of years without cell phones. They can survive without them now. No pagers or cell phone permitted, end of discussion.
Now that we've heard from the local dealer, it might be time to remind him...
When in school, you can't claim rights incompatible with the primary function of the institution.
Deal on your own time, off school premises.
They're never gong to be able to enforce this. It's a huge school.
They'll spend a disproportionate amount of time on this that could be spent on more pressing issues.
I've noticed in my career that simple-minded teachers and administrators like rules like this because they're very black and white and give them an opportunity to flex muscle over kids who aren't otherwise causing problems.
Schools should legally be allowed to jam the cellphone signals on their property. imho
My kids both take cellphones to school. Per district policy, they are turned off during school hours. The district actually just started allowing this last year. There are so many kids in afterschool programs and sports, that they need a way to contact their parents outside of school hours. It seems to work here.
Huh? A search justified by a suspicion of contraband could obviously only apply to locations where such contraband might be found, like a locker or backpack, and would not include the memory of a cell phone.
I have no need or desire to be big brother, the thought police, or the keeper of my student's cell phones.