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I Can't Talk Right Now, I'm In Class

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By MARILYN BROWN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 30, 2007

TAMPA - Cell phones are driving teachers crazy.

As the phones become smaller and more sophisticated, they are becoming a big problem in schools, even with middle and elementary students.

'It's amazing - they come to class with no textbook, no pencil, but they have the cell phone on them,' said Mark Danish, a science teacher at Tampa's Benito Middle School.

Cell phones can send instant messages, take pictures of tests and connect to the Internet. The district has three or four cases a year of invalidated Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests because of cell phone misuse, including one student who photographed the cover of a test.

Although cell phone use is forbidden during school hours, enforcing the rule has become a challenge. The consequences are up to individual schools and teachers. Some teachers confiscate misused phones, others simply ask students to put them away.

Many schools require parents to pick up confiscated phones. As proof of cell phone misuse, schools such as Brandon High have a drawer full of phones taken from students caught texting or phoning during class.

In a nod to the growing problem, the state is cracking down. Teachers will collect phones at the door as students enter rooms to take the FCAT this year. Students caught in the room with a phone, whether it's on or off, will have their tests invalidated under new state rules.

'Kids don't understand what's at stake,' said Sam Whitten, Hillsborough County schools' assessment supervisor. 'It's become a problem of test security.'

Most Florida school districts, including Hillsborough, banned electronic devices before Sept. 11, 2001, when emotional calls from the World Trade Center and passengers on a doomed airplane put a new light on cell phones. School shootings reinforced the desire for parents to stay in touch.

Beginning in 2002-03, Hillsborough allowed cell phones in school as long as they were turned off during school hours. In 2004, state law allowed students to have cell phones on campus, leaving details to the districts. Hillsborough kept its policy. Once the bell rings to start the school day, students must turn off their phones and leave them off until the school day ends. Beepers, iPods and other electronic devices are not allowed on campus.

Mom's On The Phone

Parents can be as much to blame as students for phone use at school, teachers say.

'Parents will call for innocuous nonsense in the middle of the day,' said Joe Joeb, a history and philosophy teacher at Alonso High School.

Symmes Elementary Principal Susan Marohnic remembers a parent calling during FCAT testing last year.

'I don't think they cared,' she said.

In addition to calling, parents are texting more.

Dawn Tucker doesn't think students should use cell phones during school but said she will text her 17-year-old daughter when there is an emergency or when she is going to be late picking her up.

'That phone will take messages when it's off,' Tucker said. 'Parents need to be in touch, especially with all the shootings - Virginia Tech, Columbine, Ohio. We need to know our kids are OK.'

Text messaging is the stealth intruder that teachers and students say can get out of control. One high school teacher calls it 'the crotch watch' because students hide phones on their laps while texting.

Parents often pre-empt school officials' calls to them about discipline or incidents in schools because their children have called or sent a text message. 'We are then bombarded with messages from parents,' said Lewis Brinson, the district's assistant superintendent for administration. They're asking ''What's going on?''

Even Elementary Kids

Cells are common even in middle schools and not unusual in elementary schools.

'They're in all grades,' said Marohnic, of Symmes Elementary. She said she averages two or three confiscations a week.

'We swept through our fifth grade a couple of weeks ago,' Marohnic said, noting about a dozen phones were found, some turned on.

School bathrooms are a favorite place to call or text.

'One fell in the toilet the other day - while it was flushing,' Martinez Middle School Principal Kathy Flanagan said. Hoping it could be recovered, the student reported it to the office, but it was gone, Flanagan told the eighth-grader.

John Manning, a seventh-grade science teacher at Buchanan Middle School, said middle school students continue to use the phones even after they repeatedly are taken away. 'They have no fear.'

Fewer Restrictions Advocated

A recent editorial in Hillsborough High School's Red & Black student newspaper called for allowing students to use cell phones during lunch and between classes.

'We are used to having our cell phones connected, our iPods to keep us relaxed, our cameras to capture those impromptu lunch scenes,' the editorial states. 'In our view, using cell phones and iPods during lunch is in no way disturbing anybody, so there is absolutely no point in banning them.'

Despite the rules, Red & Black editor Emily Matras said, students use phones anyway.

'They're just a bit more sneaky about it.'

The district's Brinson said officials may be willing to reconsider allowing cell phones during lunch, but not between classes because it could make students tardy to class.

Teachers seem aggravated but resigned.

'At any given time, there's always been some issue,' said Vicki Heiser, a 34-year veteran now teaching social studies at Tampa's Blake High School. 'Right now, it's cell phones.'

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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