When scared and in danger, is it bad to use your phone for safety? On October 24th, during advisory when 8th graders were enjoying their outside time, a firework went off leaving many students confused and even scared at what might be going on. An article was already written about this event here on The Falcon Cry. At the time, there was a rumor of an unnamed girl who got her phone taken for trying to call her mom after being scared from the fireworks. Here’s what we at the Falcon Cry found.
Emma Mealey, an eighth grader at LMS who had experienced the fireworks from a distance, and after hearing stories about what the sound was she, along with a group of friends, ran off to the restroom to hide and proceeded to call their parents together. Later in class, Mealey got called to go to the office to meet with Principal Rodriguez to be questioned. She asked how she was feeling after the event. Rodriguez mentioned to her that Mealey’s mom had called the school angrily about what had happened, saying stuff about a lockdown, to which Mealey responded by saying that was false. Mealey never communicated about any lockdown to her mom to which Rodriguez responded to her by asking how Mealey called her mom and she explained, “I used my phone to call her because she told me that if there was ever an emergency and I didn’t feel safe that I could call her.” She explained more of her reasoning for being on her phone, one of those being high anxiety, which was responded with by a small warning for it to not happen again and to use a school phone next time, making sure again that Mealey felt better and could return to class.
While rumors stated that Mealey’s phone had been taken, that was untrue and Mealey’s mom only came to pick her up because of the anxiety attack she had experienced.
Principal Rodriguez revealed that the whole situation was just bad miscommunication. Rodriguez says that the reason Mealey was called to the office was never about the phone and more so to ensure her safety and that any uneasy feelings Mealey was experiencing had died down.
Both explained that no consequences were given for the incident as the only focus was safety and wanted to show Mealey that she could always come to counselors, teachers, and admin if she or anyone else felt unsafe.
Rodriguez feels that the phone policy was set to ensure that students have full focus on learning, as studies (Journal of Medicine) have proven that cell phones can be addictive, distracting, and stunt the brain development of children, which is why she and the rest of Lively’s staff are working very hard to keep students healthy and safe, although cellphones can still be very helpful for parents to keep track of their kids with things like Life 360 so she understands the need for having phones in school with the preference of them being off and in their bags.
Where do you draw the line when it comes to the phone policy?
While most teachers agreed that it’s when there is any kind of emergency such as an intruder, medical reasons, or even to call a parent, some are more lenient and will allow it within reason, like listening to music, working on school work, and even Kahoot. Surprisingly students’ opinions didn’t differ from teachers very much, with students like Olivia Patrin saying she thinks that the times to use a phone are when listening to music to increase focus, turning off a notification when it goes off, school-related apps and tools, and only wished for teachers to relax the rules and react with less intensity when caught with a phone.
Shai Zimmerman is a 7th-grade English teacher here at Lively who firmly believes that phones shouldn’t be allowed in school at all. Zimmerman mentions the many statistics backing up his claim that phones are a major distraction in school. “I used to work at a school where all students dropped off phones in a bin in each classroom, and I loved that,” said Zimmerman. Zimmerman has heavily expressed his opinions on wanting something like this at Lively.
In conclusion, the opinions on this controversial topic and its policies will most likely never completely align between students and teachers, but hopefully one day we can find a good solution.
