Just about two weeks ago we annonced to our student body that they could use cell phones in the 4-minute passing time between classes and in the cafeteria during their lunch. I anticipated during lunch periods that most students would be texting on their cell phones. Boy, was I wrong. Over the last two weeks I have periodically walked through our cafeteria area to count how many cell phones were out and in use. To date the highest number I have found at any one time is 4. We have some lunch periods with about  250 students in them. I certainly thought that more than 4 students would be using their cell phone during lunch.

I have also purposely walked the hallways between classes to see how many cell phones are out. The other day I covered almost half of our school during the 4-minute pass time and only saw 1 cell phone out.  I was astonished. I have also asked many students what they think of the changes in the cell phone policy. Generally they feel that it is reasonable. They feel they are not interferring with the instructional day by using their cell phones during lunch or between classes. My analysis is that in the student's mind using their cell phone between classes and during lunch is no big deal.

My observations have me asking the question, "Do we as administrators exacerbate problems by the way we try to control them?" Have you made cell phones such a big issue at your school that in fact it is a big issue? At the same time I realize it is early in the year and  I may regret what I just wrote. So far our decision to allow cell phones to be used during the school day is no big deal.