When shots were fired, students crowded into classrooms to get to safety. Apalachee High School wrote or called their parents to inform them what had happened and to send them what they thought is perhaps their last messages. One student texted her mother telling her she loved her and added, “I’m sorry for not being the best daughter.”
The Georgia school shooting that left 4 people dead and nine injured last week was every parent’s worst nightmare and in addition highlights the potential downside of efforts by states, school districts and federal legislatures to ban or restrict access to cell phones in classrooms.
The push to limit cellphone use in schools has been prompted by concerns in regards to the impact of screen time on kid’s mental health, in addition to complaints from teachers that phones have grow to be a relentless distraction at school. But opponents of the bans say they cut off a lifeline for folks who need to make sure their children are protected during school shootings or other emergencies.
“The fact is that parents and families cannot rely on schools to communicate effectively with us in emergency situations, and that has happened time and time again,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, an education advocacy group. “There are a whole host of reasons why parents are deeply concerned about whether they will receive timely information about whether or not their children are safe.”
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 77% of U.S. schools nationwide ban cell phones for nonacademic purposes. But that number is misleading. It does not imply that students follow these bans or that each one schools implement them.
The restrictions were loudly announced by each Republican and Democratic governors, who rarely agree on other issues.
In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has launched a program that permits school districts to use for grants to buy bags where students can keep their phones through the school day. In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has urged school districts to limit cellphone use and is considering signing a bill that will require schools to implement restrictions.
“I don’t want another school shooting to be the reason we bring televisions into classrooms and interrupt our children’s education,” Newsom said Friday. “Because it’s basically the same thing as a cell phone: You bring a television into the classroom and you interrupt the opportunity to get quality instruction.”
But for a lot of students who witnessed the Apalachee shooting, access to their phones was the one technique to communicate with family members in moments they feared might be their last.
“I love you. I love you so much. Mom, I love you,” Junior Julie Sandoval wrote to her mother. “I’m sorry I’m not the best daughter. I love you.”
Nearby, Sandoval said, one other student was on the phone and telling his mother, “They’re shooting at school! They’re shooting at school!”
But advocates of restricting cellular phone access in schools warn that allowing students to access their phones during shootings or other emergencies could put them at even greater risk.
“What’s more important to me is their safety,” said Kim Whitman, co-founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement, a bunch that advocates for schools to adopt policies that turn off cell phones and keep them away from students. “If my child is on the phone with me and misses instructions from the teacher because they’re distracted by their phone and not safe, that’s an even worse scenario in my eyes.”
Whitman said she understands concerns about informing parents and that is why it is important for any phone-free school to be proactive about emergency notifications.
Balancing safety with parental concerns was the explanation for the cellphone ban at Grand Island Senior High, the biggest highschool in Nebraska. In January, the college implemented a brand new policy that requires students to hold their phones out of sight and of their bags or pockets during class time, or to silence or turn them off.
“One of the main questions parents asked us was, ‘What if Sally or Johnny doesn’t have their phone if – God forbid – there’s a shooting or a crisis in the building?'” said Jeff Gilbertson, the college’s principal on the time, who now leads leadership training for the state Board of Education.
However, the college is conducting lockdown training to remind students of the hazards that phones may cause in emergencies.
“We advise our children to put their phones on silent. Don’t use your phone during curfew because that would give your location away to an active shooter,” he said.
In other school shootings, students have used cellphones to alert authorities or their parents. In the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 21 people, a fourth-grader asked for help in a series of emergency calls. Students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, sent parents and released harrowing videos through the 2018 shooting that left 17 people dead.
For Brandi Scire, the Apalachee school shooting was a painful reminder of why she got a cellular phone for her daughter, now a sophomore in highschool in Broward County, Florida. Her two children attended schools near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School through the shooting.
Scire’s son’s school was on lockdown and she or he thought it was a drill until she texted him. Because of this, Scire bought a cellular phone for her daughter the next yr.
Broward County schools now require students to place their phones away and put them on airplane mode, but Scire told her daughter to maintain her phone on and together with her.
“This isn’t about me texting my daughter during regular school hours or anything like that,” Scire said. “It’s a safety measure and I’m sorry, I can’t let this go.”
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