Cell Phone Ban: Response by Alex K.

Due to unnecessary complaints about my other opinion article published in the last issue of The Bird’s Eye View about The Cell Phone Ban at Mount Abraham, here are some revisions. Thomas Shearer, an active member of the Admin Team and the Middle School "Behavior Specialist,” told me the reasons for having it. The team's main concern for having a cell phone ban was because allowing cell phone use during the school day does not support our school’s mission. According to the team, cell phone use allowed for apparent bullying and does not promote an active learning environment. Nancy Yannett, the Dean of students for grades 10 through 12, says that last year every advisory should have gotten a sheet of paper explaining the new policy; I personally did not get one of these sheets and was not aware of the explanation. Nancy said "I personally looked at every paper handed back and answered each question from the advisories." The question and answers were then printed in the parent-student newsletter.
I did not see this in the newsletter and I did not get the sheet explaining it in advisory. Everyone that I have spoken to, my friends and acquaintances, have told me that they did not really know why we have the cell phone ban in our school and that it was never really explained to them in reason. I still believe that Cell Phones should be allowed during certain times during the school day: possibly during a free block or lunch break. But I do understand that the administration does not want to keep track of all of the kids that could not be in a free period but are really in a class, who is going to keep track of them? The students should be responsible enough to not use them when they shouldn't, but that's not the case and we all know it.