Prompt #10 Should SIS allow students to use cellphones during the school day or not?

Should SIS allow students to use cellphones during the day or not?  Firstly, SIS stands for Saipan International School, the school that I go to.  As for the prompt, I think that students should be allowed to use cellphones during the school day.  They should be allowed to use the phone to make important phone calls or receive important phone calls.  I think that they should be allowed to use phones, but I think there should be some restrictions to using the cellphones during school hours.

Students should be able to use cellphones during school to make phone calls to their parents if they had forgotten something at home, or to tell them things like if they will stay after school for after school activities such as Math Court, Lincoln Douglas Debate, National Forensics League, detention, volleyball, or basketball practice.  Telling them this is very important because some students live very far from school, like 20-30 minutes away for some students.  Coming back and forth from school to home can waste a lot of gas, if they were not informed and came to school, that can be problematic.

 

They might also need to call for ordering lunch.  We cannot order before school because its too early to call, and the restaurant might be still closed, so called during class break is usually a good time to place an order for lunch.  The school lunch is quite horrendous and many students like to just throw it away or, a very popular choice, ordering Japanese lunch or Judys, or even Chinese lunch.  Many students do this.  They call the restaurant at break time and then by lunchtime, the lunch will be delivered. 

Some students’ phones also have internet.  Most of the time in school, students have a really hard time connecting to the internet and only a few students are able to connect.  But some students’ phones have 3G internet so they can connect to the internet anywhere they are, like school.  So I think that, if students need to research things for information and cannot connect to the school internet on their laptops, they should be able to resort to using their phones for research.

 

I think being able to use cell phones in school is a good thing, but it will need some restrictions.  Students should only be able to use their phone with the teachers consent only.  Some students might just use their phones for games, music, or texting friends.  I think that if a student is caught doing those things at the wrong time, they should be punished.  Maybe a detention or confiscation of the phone will be a proper penalty for the misuse of the phone.