What Denton is saying

"There is significant data that supports the position that classrooms and campuses should be cell phone free. Anyone who is being truly objective in their research should be able to conclude easily that the benefits of cell phone free schools far outweigh the negatives. District issuance of technology to students, communication technology standard to every classroom and teacher presence and engagement initiatives nullify or mitigate any argument or concerns for cell phones being allowed in schools. Cell phones are an enormous distraction and the root cause or facilitator for a long list of problems on campuses. For anyone who argues this, I encourage them to look at the current state of our society in general and the role that phones have in it. In a battle for a student’s attention and focus, teachers and schools cannot win versus phones. I know this because that is what they tell me and medical research supports that statement. Teachers are held accountable for student performance on standardized testing in classrooms not fully optimized for student focus and attention. I understand the district allows them to have their phones for “safety and instructional purposes” and they aren’t allowed to use them during instructional time without teacher direction. However, again, you cannot win the battle for a students attention versus cell phones. Allowing them to have them but barring them from using them at certain times or in certain places only provides the opportunity to use it anyway even though they aren’t supposed to because it is to vital of a source of stimulation and they can’t help themselves or they just don’t care about the rules. I can somewhat understand the concerns for safety but if someone is trying to hurt them they have to focus on defending themselves and the phone won’t help them. It will likely be knocked away or be inaccessible or otherwise unusable because they have to hide or remain physically and mentally engaged in what is occurring. Teacher presence and awareness is key to preventing or reducing the impact of this stuff anyway. During large scale emergencies like shootings or fires they create problems as well by starting a swarm of family members to the school and floods of 911 calls, many of which are redundant, to dispatchers thereby hindering emergency response. Between teacher cell phones and classroom and office phones, emergency responders will have an adequate flow of information to dispatch. I understand the apprehension that not having instant communication with your child can create for parents in emergency or non emergency situations but again, there is a phone in every room, students have school email (which can be more easily controlled during emergencies) and school districts need to control the flow of information, misinformation and rumors. This is important for crisis management and media and public relations purposes. Additionally, cell phones enable and contribute exponentially to a broad spectrum of bad conduct and criminal activity to include drug sales, harassment, terroristic threats, bullying, stalking, and the coordination of fights and spectators of them, targeted assaults or “meet ups” for all sorts of conduct that shouldn’t be taking place at school. One could argue that this stuff will happen anyway and it might but we don’t have to make it easier for them to make it happen or to mitigate or avoid school staff response or presence. Just the idea of a greater risk of being caught correlates to reduced crime and bad conduct."