One of the worst decision that the DeBlasio Administration made was rescinding the cellphone ban and allowing students to carry their cellphones into school. The result of this ill-advised decision was an increase in school thefts, fights, and outright violence. At the Lehman campus in the Bronx it got so bad that the six schools at the school require all their students to give up their cellphones before going to class. This policy reversed the DeBlasio cellphone policy after the students at the Lehman campus were using their cellphones to coordinate gang fights outside the school. You can read about it Here.
More importantly, many teachers throughout the City are finding that their students refuse to put their cellphones away in the classroom and in far too many cases it has led to confrontations between the teacher and the disobedient student with bad results. Worse, the cellphone usage is a distraction to good teaching and learning as the student is more interested in his or her cellphone then absorb the lesson and the teacher must frequently interrupt the lesson to ask the student to put away the cellphone, making the instruction less effective to the entire class.
How can a teacher be effective if the school administration fails to take the cellphone issue seriously and calling parents is not the solution since they usually support their children having a cellphone and suffer no consequence when informed that their child was using the cellphone in class?
The only real solution is to do what the Lehman Campus is doing, making the students check their cellphones at the school door or revert back to the cellphone ban that will allow for less classroom distractions and a more peaceful classroom, the main ingredients for successful teaching and learning.