Tales from the cell phone trenches

Posted by Philissa at 2:51 PM

When I wrote last week about the cell phone ban, I didn't know that random scanning and cell phone seizures were happening at the time at Forest Hills High School -- not a school that has a reputation for having students who carry weapons. As the Queens Times-Ledger noted, the scanning happened on the anniversary of Sept. 11 and a day after the City Council overrode Mayor Bloomberg's veto of a bill that would permit kids to carry cell phones to and from school. The day after the raid, NYC Public School parents blog had the damage: most kids were late to class, some skipped school altogether, and kids could choose whether their cell phones or iPods were confiscated. Commenters on that blog include Forest Hills parents and a teacher, who writes, "Parents in the suburbs and in private schools would not tolerate being unable to reach their child when necessary." All of this, in the best city school system in the country.