The cellphone police, coming soon to a school near you

Those are difficult ages, from about 10 to high school. They are too old for day care, but you can't comfortably leave them on their own. I think you should be allowed to give the children cell phones also.

I am sure the debate is hot. On one side we have security issues that cell phones can help our kids as you point out, and on the other side we have learning problems at the school.

Along these lines, my kids and their friends are experts at sending messages. They can type the message without seeing the little keyboard. They communicate to each other during classes.

What they do at my son school is to put little save boxes to keep the cell phones during classes. When the leave the ca take and used to their discretion.

Mario Ruiz

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A good idea for parents to keep in touch with their kids for safety. This poses a problem in abusing the privilage of having the phone; communicating with friends while in class, or receiving calls midclass. This problem is evident in many classroom environments. For instance in Asia, students studying english will receive calls midclass to receive instructions by another for how to sabotage the instructor`s lesson or embarrass the instructor. This is often met with a rule of no phone during class.

This could be applied to the Upper West Side where students either power off their phones or dont use them at all while in class, but able to receive a call from parents.

Cell phones didn't become a common consumer item until 2000-2001. To assert that they are now a "necessity" is absurd.

Just make rules and enforce them. Our children's school allows Cell Phones. The students are required to turn off them during class or the cell will be confiscated and only the authorized representative (parent or other guardian) of the student will be allowed to retrieve it from the principal's office. I think the Cell phone has become an invaluable tool to communicate with our children. We don't call them every 5 minutes. If anybody does that, he or she requires urgent sicological counseling. Another rule for our children (enforced by many parents): always answer our call or your cell phone will be confiscated by us and you grounded for a week. When I was a child we didn't need cellphones, and when our grandparents were children they did'nt need measles vaccination, but if those are available today, why not take advantage of their clear benefits.