School System Considers Jamming Students' Phones 785
An anonymous reader writes "The St. Ansgar, Iowa school system is considering buying cell-phone jamming equipment for up to $5000 if it is deemed legal. The use of the equipment would be suspended in the case of an emergency, but one has to wonder if they would be quick enough to shut it down should an emergency arise. 'A Federal Communications Commission notice issued in 2005 says the sale and use of transmitters that jam cellular or personal communications services is unlawful.'"
back in my day (Score:5, Insightful)
I might be too old... (Score:5, Insightful)
I obviously didn't RTA, but what a waste of money... (if not the possible consequences)
emergency/911 calls? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I might be too old... (Score:5, Insightful)
But what happened to good ol' telling them not to use their mobiles, and if they -do- use it, apply punishment?
A crapload of lawsuits against the schools happened.
When I was a senior in high school, a student started physically assaulting one of the teachers. The teacher didn't fight back because he had been instructed, as the entire faculty had been, to not do so as the school would face a lawsuit if a teacher injured a student.
I noticed that as I went from Kindergarten to a Senior in High School the teachers seemed to become less aggressive. They no longer bellowed "sit down and do your work" but asked you politely to "stay on task, everyone".
I was glad I got out before things became any more passive-aggressive.
a slippery slope, best stop this nice and quick (Score:3, Insightful)
Jamming cell phones is a slippery slope and I think we (as a society) would be just as well off to put a stop to this right here.
There is of course the fact that jamming a cell phone for almost any reason is quite illegal. But let's set that aside.
As has often been mentioned- the idea that the jammer would be shut off in an emergency is absurd. If there's a 'big' emergency nobody will remember to turn it off (assuming anybody knows how to), and for 'little' emergencies (as someone else said, girl getting raped in the locker room) this would create a serious problem. Plus which a jammer, being an RF emitter, doesn't immediately stop jamming when you walk thru the school doors. It will either be overpowered, and reduce or degrade service around the school, or underpowered leading to kids just sitting next to the window so their phones will work.
These problems arise anytime you talk about cell phone jamming, and there is no solution. Cell networks are encrypted, so you can't block only non-emergency calls. And no carrier is going to be the first one to step up and help block their customers, it's just not in anybody's best interest.
This is a societal problem, not a technical one, and it requires a societal fix. If people are yakking on their phone in the movie theater, the solution isn't a jammer, the solution is to get people to not be rude assholes.
As for the school, if they can't get kids to pay attention in class maybe the problem is that their lesson plan is boring and the teacher couldn't care less if the kids are interested or not. Or perhaps their problem is that the faculty doesn't demand student respect, so students ignore the rules.
As a previous poster said- just take away the phone or battery of any kid that is using it in class and give it back to him at the end of the day. If he does it again make his parent come in and get it.
Put simply, this school has a discipline problem and needs better teachers or better administration. It does not have a technical problem, so a technical solution won't help them.
Re:back in my day (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:back in my day (Score:4, Insightful)
So are vocal chords, but we don't "block" those. We teach the kids how to use them properly in a learning environment, and punish them accordingly if they don't.
("Talk out of turn again, and you'll be here for detention")
Re:Nice to know the've got emergencies covered... (Score:3, Insightful)
Calling 911 will not prevent the rape anways.
I'd just ban cell phone use if I were a principal/school admin. Get caught using it during school hours for non-emergencies.. phone gets confiscated til the end of the week and you get a detention. Hell, I wasn't allowed to even chew gum or wear a hat. Now get off my lawn.
So what's the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
All they need are the usual restrictions for movie theaters. Tell students that carrying a cell phone is fine, but ringing has to be off while in class, and texting in class is a no-no. That's enough to keep cell phones from interfering with the school's educational mission. Beyond that, as a Government body, the school has no business interfering.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Students should be -encouraged- to collaborate because the real world is built on collaboration and research.
Yes, because I'm sure the problem is that students are just *dying* to collaborate over their cell phones, and those nasty teachers are too backwards to understand it. :rollseyes:
Sorry buddy, this is the kind of thing that's being communicated between students during times when they should be working:
"OMG did u c wat ashleys waring 2day???"
"OMG I no wat a hore!"
"LOL!!!"
Re:Nice to know the've got emergencies covered... (Score:2, Insightful)
A loud, piercing, and frequently-repeated scream and appropriate use of fingernails, teeth, and any other blunt or pointy part that can be applied would be far more likely to be useful. At that point, the phone is best applied as a blunt (or if you smash it hard enough against a hard surface and make a shiv, pointy) weapon.
I'm not saying that there's aren't cases where a student's ability to make a 911 call would be useful, even critical, but this doesn't appear to be one of them. If the rapist has overwhelming force sufficient to carry out the act, they have more than enough control to prevent something as complex as a telephone call.
Re:back in my day (Score:2, Insightful)
In most local school districts teachers are no more permitted to use cell phones in class than students. Sure, it would be a minor inconvenience when they have a break, but their classrooms and offices likely already have phones in them.
The main issue is that they should just be taking the phones when and if they see (or hear) them, rather than spending all of this money to block them. When I was in high school they went as far as confiscating hats from students on campus because teachers would waste time telling students to take them off in class rooms, but they were still just taking them away.
Re:It's not that complicated... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:back in my day (Score:4, Insightful)
Great!
Your movie theater will burn to the ground when it catches fire because the FD will not enter a building where there are known radio problems.
RF is a vital link, and thinking that cellphones are the only thing that uses the link is stupid at best.
Just get the teachers to TAKE AWAY THE DAMNED PHONE if there's an issue.
Re:Come an emergency... (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of whether or not it should be illegal to confiscate items, the fact is that schools have basically the same rights as your parents. So yes, they have every right to search you if that's considered necessary and they can confiscate anything they want.
I personally think that they should only be able to confiscate the battery when it comes to cellphones, because taking a phone is a violation of privacy IMO. (Especially if you're nosing around in the texts or pictures stored on it... but you could, which is enough reason that you shouldn't be able to take the phone.) Taking the battery is good enough.
Re:I might be too old... (Score:2, Insightful)
Phones weren't allowed in my school, I got one with about 3 months to go before the end of senior year. If it rang in school it would have been confiscated. This is not corporal punishment and so discussing these lawsuits related to it is off-topic and unnecessary. How did you get to 5 pts for that?
Re:back in my day (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for foisting your ill-behaved little offspring on the rest of the world. If you had taught your children how to operate in a polite society, then society wouldn't be looking at a way to enforce good behaviour.
Re:back in my day (Score:1, Insightful)
Sure, it would be a minor inconvenience when they have a break, but their classrooms and offices likely already have phones in them.
If you believe classrooms have phones in them, you are delusional. If you believe teachers have offices, you are even more delusional.
Teachers used to have to go to the office to make phone calls, and even then they could only make local ones or use a calling card.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
Workers can't use personal phones to do personal things instead of working.
Somehow I'm not sad.
Re:I might be too old... (Score:2, Insightful)
The teacher didn't fight back because he had been instructed, as the entire faculty had been, to not do so as the school would face a lawsuit if a teacher injured a student.
Probably this is a rule of the school rather than a national law. The teachers I know who graduated in the last ten years have been taught some "non-aggressive" self-defense - basically ways to restrain a person that won't seriously injure the person being restrained. They are not allowed to punch, kick bite etc. students. Remember that students are often under the age of adult legal responsibility - they have not matured and developed the self control that adults have (admittedly, some never will..). One teacher I know is a black belt and even he says that the last thing he would ever do is use some martial arts in the class room - because a child slapping you in the face is not a life threatening situation, and no reasonable person would believe that a teacher breaking a student's bones is justified.
Of course, this is in a relatively safe country. In the United States, where many students own guns and could easily slaughter their classmates, things may be different.
Re:back in my day (Score:4, Insightful)
the FD will not enter a building where there are known radio problems>
Where did you get this "fact"?
Re:back in my day (Score:4, Insightful)
I went to an all boys Catholic High School [holycrosshs.org]. Graduated in 1999. We were not allowed to use cell phones or beepers. Most infractions involved beepers at the time. The single payphone and 2 vending machines on the school were off limits from first period to dismissal.Naturally some people just didn't get caught, and those of us in honors calsses or sports were usually given a little bit of leeway if we didn't abuse it. I was one of the people that could have gotten away with a beeper shaped buldge in my pocket, but I would not have attempted it if I could afford such a luxury.
In the end, I'm glad for these restrictions on my freedom. I'm a liberterian, and tended to always lean that way, but until graduating high school one should be denied a certain level of freedom and personhood.
Now, dresscodes on the other hand made me not give a crap about how I look. I was more concerned with following the rules than how I looked. Therefore I tend to be one of the worst dressed in a "business casual" envirorment.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
A teacher shouldn't be required to walk off the property just to make a quick personal call, especially since a teacher's "break" is usually just a few minutes and they have other things to do as well.
Re:back in my day (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, and you're wrong.
You're right, in that there is NO cure for boring Teachers (Bueller? Anyone?).
However, your wrong if you have ADDITIONAL distractions available. I don't care how "interesting" things are especially if some girl is texting naked pictures of herself to her boyfriend.
On a scale of "interesting", the most entertaining and engaging teacher cannot compete with all sorts of other "interesting" options.
There is NO need for a cell phone in a K-12 classroom. Especially when you consider that every classroom HAS a phone in it! NONE!
Re:back in my day (Score:5, Insightful)
I graduated before Columbine.....the nerd smacking the jock in the head with a metal chair repeatedly until he was down....The lunch monitor didn't even flinch.
Lessons learnt: you can get away with just about anything (e.g. beating someone around the head with a metal implement!!) if you think it is justified, if you are going to nick something make sure you leave the victim in no fit state to come after you and you can save money by sacking the "lunch monitors". All excellent preparation for entry into a civilized society.
Makes you wonder how Columbine could possibly have happened doesn't it?
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
No... my wife's a stay-at-home mom, and I'm a programmer. I can take (or make) as many personal calls as I want to. But I don't, because that's what IM is for ;)
Anyway, no active jammer is going to jam just inside the walls, it's going to have a range that extends outside the walls of the school, and probably significantly so.
If they're being forced to walk halfway across the soccer field to make a call, you may as well call it "off the property".
Re:back in my day (Score:5, Insightful)
So how did we manage to raise our children safely, much less survive, for the last 100k+ years without them?!
Oh wait, when I was in school (before cellphones), my parents could come pick me up from school just fine. Telling me before the fact really didn't matter, and still doesn't. (I love people who really need to call you and tell you that they are on their way, then call you and tell you that they're there, and then come and knock on your damn door). The rest of your examples are pretty weak proof for the need to have always on access to your children (poor kids!). How often will I need to call my kids in the case of a terrorist attack? Wait... Your chances of being involved in a terrorist attack is less than your chances of being struck by lightening.
The convenience isn't worth the price, especially if we're going to use terrorism as an excuse (yet again).
As for:
"You left your homework home again, I'll meet you after 3rd period to drop it off - last time (right) I'm doing this"
So, your going to disrupt a whole class of 20-30 children for this?
One of my professors in college would drop you a grade-point every time you disrupted the class with a phone call. It was actually a very popular program.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
Most classrooms do NOT have phones. You have no idea what you are talking about. Teachers use phones in the office to call parents not to make personal phone calls that be overheard by everyone..
Teachers have every right to use a cell phone on their break.
Re:back in my day (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, even if we are talking about out-of-school family emergencies, the principal has no right to know the situation.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
we didn't have cell phones. beepers were just starting to appear when i graduated high-school. we never had any problems alerting in the event of an emergency. we had fire alarms, PA system, and ye olde fashioned telephones in every classroom.
Me too, but to be fair, by the time we got to high school, over 70% of my classmates had been killed by fires, cholera, and indian raids. Cell phones would have really helped alert us as to the dangers so we could circle the wagons.
Re:Not legal (Score:3, Insightful)
My problem with your number 2: teaching is not entertainment, and there will always be devices that are more interesting and attention-grabbing in the short term for most of the students than whatever is being taught. Sometimes, there is a certain amount of drudge in learning, and if teachers were such stellar entertainers that they could make sentence-diagramming, long division, and basic biology more interesting than the girl you have a crush on and keep texting, they'd be making hundreds of thousands of dollars in Vegas, not teaching in your local junior high.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
What the fuck is the point of arguing over this?
People live in different areas with different schools, the classrooms of which may or may not contain telephones.
Re:back in my day (Score:1, Insightful)
Personal emergencies? Say a teacher's young child is sick at daycare and is sent to hospital? Nurse calls up mommy to find out if her kid has any allergies... but no, straight to voicemail, thanks to cellphone blocking. You are only allowed to find out about that 10:30 AM emergency after we shut off the blocking system at 3:00 PM.
And besides, we all know that personal emergencies are illegel. "Sorry, you're not allowed to leave here until your work is finished for the day."
Maybe you can sic the school police officers on an errant teacher, taser them til they comply.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
Mine is self sufficiency. I don't care if you are part of the middle class, have a moderate amount of credit card debt, and the latest and greatest shiny toys either. To me, a farmer that is feeding him and his family while making enough to purchase the supplies that he needs, is a success story too.
Living on welfare, or basically being subsidized by the rest of us tax payers, is NEVER a success story. It's me (and others) basically dragging their pathetic asses along for the ride.
I don't think so. That path has the highest likelihood of leading toward self sufficiency. Note, I don't think it is the ONLY path, just a path that more often than not does lead towards some sort of self sufficiency. Some of the most successful people in the world were dropouts, which goes to show you that it is also about ambition, visions, and a desire to overcome.
I don't like the U.S educational system anyways. We would be far better off with various trade schools for young people, like some countries in Europe. Bring back apprenticeship. Have businesses interact with trade schools to give hands on contemporary experience in their fields of interest.
For those exceptional students who are destined for PHD's and research grants let them prepare themselves to enter some brand name college. I myself would have been far better served by some trade school that could have taught me about networks, tcp/ip, security, ethernet, DNS, etc.
Re:back in my day (Score:1, Insightful)
I believe it's more of a freedom question than practicality. I wouldn't wish to have my phone shut off in school for any reason at all. It's not the school's right, at least I don't believe it is.
Although for some strange reason, I get a very weak signal, almost non-existent one while on the premises of my college campus.
If your phone goes off, or you leave the classroom to make a call, my college professors will either mark you absent for the period for disrupting the class, or will kick you out. Some will actually drop you from the class if this repeats. No joke.
I turn my phone silent, and problem is solved. If I want to use it, I can. If I need to use it, it's readily available. Of course, when the class gets boring, ;) it's there too
Re:back in my day (Score:2, Insightful)
I know four people pretty well that ended up getting their GED. They vary in their reasons for quitting High School. One wanted to spend more time getting wasted/chasing girls, one didn't see the point because he was taking car repair classes and was learning more there about what he wanted to do than he would at school, one wanted to start working, and one....I don't know....he was a 3.8-3.9 type student with just over 1/2 a year left and suddenly decided to move in with his sister in California for awhile.
The one that wanted to spend more time getting wasted turned out to be an over the road trucker when he hit 19 and is sitting at age 40 doing local runs and getting ready to retire. The one that wanted to fix cars was managing a Firestone Service Center by age 22 and makes over six figures (Unless bonuses are bad one year), the one who wanted to work had his own HVAC company by 25 and has made plenty of cash, and the one that moved to California is an airplane mechanic (Actually by far the least successful financially of the four...it is kind of surprising how little airplane mechanics actually make).
All four of them shared a common thread as far as not graduating went....they all wanted to get their G.E.D. after securing their jobs and making a decent amount of money. The reason? A bit of self worth and a bit but mostly so they could tell their kids that they are "High School Graduates". Oddly, when asked what they would do differently about their lives, they say they would have finished High School but all are happy in their chosen fields. I figure I should mention that the truck driver and mechanic spend more time reading/learning as adults than a lot of the College Grads I know.
I guess you could say "Yeah, but they all had to take Blue Collar positions and do actual work.." or something. I'm sure that the statistics show that graduating high school is very important to future financial success but in my person opinion I think that the type of person you are is going to dictate your success if you graduate High School or do not.
Re:back in my day (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny thing is as an adult if another adult was throwing punches at me or punting kickballs hard into my head people wouldn't look at me with bug eyes if I got up in their faces, but as a kid they put me under a microscope since I was reacting in kind. I can't particularly blame the other kids either since, well, they're kids. The people in charge should know better.