In a school shooting situation, cell phones could make things much worse. During my active shooter training, we were told to ask students to turn them off if we were in a shooting. The noise is an obvious danger, but the lines need to be kept clear for communication with emergency response personnel. There would be structured ways that the school would want to communicate with you - they don’t want the chaos of parents showing up to an active scene. I think it would be better to rely on things like the Rave app.

In other situations, the front office is there. That is the function that they have served for generations. Give the office aides something to do.

There’s just little reason for students to have smart phones in school. They cannot control themselves. We are asking them to have more self restraint than most adults do. It is not developmentally appropriate and it is harmful.