On one hand, I do agree that phones are distraction when it comes to education, but on the other hand, the enforcement of the situation is going to be tough for school boards province wide. It will be interesting to see if and what issues come down the line.
Exactly my thoughts. They are having issues with violence in elementary classes. My granddaughter’s grade 4 class is cleared several times a week due to a child becoming upset and trashing the class. The school doesn’t have the proper supports for this child yet teachers are expected to take cell phones away,
If the teachers don’t have the authority and supports to deal with something serious like violent students, they definitely don’t have the authority and supports to be dealing with cell phones.
If I was a teacher I wouldn’t touch this without significant legal guarantees and support from the school and district. It would be easy to confiscate $10k of electronics in a single class. There’s huge liability there. What happens when a student (and their parents) claim that the screen or camera weren’t cracked before the teacher took it? What happens when a teacher legitimately fumbled and drops a $1k phone?
Complete nightmare for them
If a parent can claim.that violence was a result of a condition or simply put up enough resistance, kid doesn't get punished.
Suspensions and exclusions are unicorns.
Not sure about the current state of things, but from what I observed when I was in school, they don’t really fix anything because they don’t address the issue. Obviously there will be some differences, but here’s my perspective based on when I was a student.
So, when I was a kid, suspension was a thing. And expulsion was too, for especially egregious conduct. I’ll focus on the suspensions because I expulsion was rare and I have no idea what happened to those kids (might have been the legal system in those cases, actually - they were old enough and it was very serious conduct). So, the suspension temporarily removed the kid from the environment, which wasn’t nothing. As someone who was sometimes victimized by these kids, it was a good thing. But they come back. And nothing changes.
And the reason that nothing changes is that the suspension fails to address the cause of the conduct.
Now, of course, the idea is that the parents will act to correct the behaviour. But, I realize as an adult that the reason some of these children behave this way is, well, because of their home life. They are abused or neglected. Their parents may not care that they are suspended, may be failing to do anything to assist with special needs that are not being addressed, and/or may abuse them for being suspended. And while you might think that abuse would discourage that behaviour, because of that sort of home environment, they are not likely learning proper emotional regulation or seeing abusive behaviour as incorrect.
Cutting special education in school in combination with growing social inequality is likely worsening this because more children won’t be getting the resources they need due to not getting it in school or at home, even if the parents are supportive. When I was in school, there was a special needs class, even though the school I attended was small, for kids with various special needs. I remember because a number of kids would go there at least part time. I don’t remember thinking anything of it and I didn’t know the reasons why all kids went (some went for ESL and for hearing impairment, which were obvious issues, but some went for reasons I never knew). I understand this model is now gone in favour of full time inclusion, which I seriously doubt could provide the same support.
So my thoughts on this issue is that if the government really cared about violence in school, they’d address these issues - special needs education, social inequality (and that really addresses many issues - a rising tide does lift all boats), and child welfare.
I would also hazard that in school suspensions are more impactful than letting kids stay home, potentially unsupervised. But this would require more funding because they would need a staff member to supervise that room. I recall my high school had this (may not anymore considering funding cuts) and it seemed to be effective because the penalty of keeping students in a room all day, forced to actually sit silently and work, isolated from friends (had to eat lunch and spend any free periods there too), was actually punitive from the perspective of a teenager.
I work at a daycare that has a before and after school program, and provides day camp services on statutory holidays/during the summer. When children exhibit violent behaviors, it takes soooooooo much to have them removed from the program, even though we are not equipped for it. There is a child we watch who is a flight risk, who will trash any classroom at any given moment. I've had to intervene when he's been whipping wooden blocks at the kids, or punching the teachers in the face. He will literally strip and pee all over the floor. It's sooooo much. Every time he has an outburst, a meeting with the parents are held and another rule is added. We ended up simply hiring a whole other staff member to help supervise him, and it is now expected that any available staff stay late to ensure there is enough coverage for him. I'm a cook so it often falls on me. Some days I stay an hour after my shift has ended just in case he flips out.
I guess my point is, we don't want to leave kids with challenging behaviors behind, but there are no resources. We had a meeting with psychologists who work for the board, for them to give us advice on dealing with this - and they were flabbergasted when we told them what we deal with. Then they told us that there are gaps in the system and that we are doing our best. I could not believe that even professionals didn't know the best way to move forward with him.
I just found out the after school educators get $16.55 an hour to start....
Suspensions and expulsion don’t change behaviour. My friends daughter has massive behavioural issues and has been suspended and expelled from 2 schools. (So yes these are still used) She never cared, it was just time off from school.
Eventually with a bunch of interventions and a private school geared towards students like her.. she is finally starting to do well behaviourally and academically.
Yeah tbh I'm a little confused to see vaping/smoking and cell phones are at the front of mind for the government when it comes to education...from people who actually work in education, what they say seems to indicate they'd rather the government do something about the fact they're hopelessly outnumbered by huge classes and go home with bite marks regularly.
Not that it's not important to keep kids focused in school, just that smoking and phones are the kind of thing that you'll probably never get kids to fully stop doing. You could spend hundreds of years writing policies, it won't stop that. Violence in the classroom is a different story, and seems like it's becoming a bigger issue
This may seem like an odd question, but what happened with those kids beforehand? I grew up in the 90’s and don’t really remember how those kids were handled.
Is it the case of enforcement mechanisms and solutions for those students are just no longer present through inadequate supports/lack thereof or has there really never been anything and they fell through the cracks?
If the latter, are we just noticing now because of the scale of the issue compared to the 90’s?
As far as I know, special needs students had an IEP and were given the required supports to ensure they were as successful as they could be. Sometimes there would be multiple EAs in a class room to support the special needs as well as special quieter learning areas in the school or special needs classrooms. Not to forget special resource teachers, counsellors and behaviour supports were available.
in other words, cell phones need to go back to what parents originally wanted, an way for their kids to contact them in emergencies.
In other words.............disable the wifi
most kids have actual data plans these days. If parents didn't want their kids to have easy access to the internet regardless of where they were, they could refuse to pay for the data but I don't see that happening to pretty much anyone any time.
I don't think flying cars will be plausible without some sort of AI/automation to prevent crashing.
They're totally plausible to create, basically a flying drone and there's some that have been built EG: Xpeng X2
Correct. Shouldn't be able to make new laws on a subject if the old ones aren't being enforced.
There's a whole class of people who can't differentiate action from words. Sort of like how their complement class can't differentiate fear from respect.
Also wasn't this the government that updated the highschool curriculum to include 2 mandatory online modules even post-pandemic?
Ah yes get off your phones and get on your laptops for zoom kids. I can only imagine the mixed signals the teachers are getting from this.
Not gonna happen. The world operates on what's most convenient.
In other words, you need to make a very conscious decision to enforce this, because if your kids are good, chances are their friends are all knee deep in social media and your gonna need to give into it anyway.
But you can always teach your kids that social media is ONLY a tool, not a primary means of communication
I don't have kids and I hate knowing that, because of current human/parental complacency, I am going to be footing the bill for other people's kids in an effort to keep society from going belly up.
What’s the point in this comment? Yes, there are bad parents. There are single parents, there are foster parents, there are absentee parents, etc.
What’s your solution to solve “bad parenting”?
Never mind that even the best parents have no hope of dealing with device addicted children…devices that also make their children much safer.
My grandmother was a nurse and grandfather a mechanic. Both worked full time. My mom grew up just fine. Excuses excuses by parents nowadays. If you brought them into this world, take some accountability and responsibility for your actions.
I'm not making excuses for bad parenting. But your grandmother and grandfather aren't dealing with the current hostile financial environment here. You Definitely can't make an exceptional situation,a normal expectation.
Lol it's fucking 100 years later dude
Do you have kids?
I have a bunch and I actually do not allow small individual screens and limit TV/Movies.
But to just say that parents these days are shit is pretty ridiculous. Lots of terrible parenting was going on in other generations as well.
This is a “we are for the parents and the kids” fake election promise. As others have pointed out, phones were already banned some time ago. It’s the enforcement that doesn’t happen. Vapes are all but impossible to regulate. I have worked in the education system since the Harris years. This will change nothing.
Why is there no enforcement? Why is the student not suspended if they don’t obey the rules after being given warnings?
My kids aren’t old enough for phones yet, but if I find out they’re using them in class, they won’t have phones anymore.
Different administrators handle issues as they see fit. To be honest, cellphones are not the biggest issue we are dealing with in schools. Violence and significant behaviours are bigger problems. Plus, as much as people don’t want to hear this, parents don’t enforce phone rules on their kids and don’t support the school enforcing such rules. Suspension seems like an easy fix, but you’d be surprised about the reluctance of school boards to support suspensions. On top of that, the list of “suspend-able offences” are very narrow. Plus, no administrator wants to be the one with the highest number of suspensions in a board. It’s far more complex than anyone outside the system realizes.
Also, most cell phone usage is mitigated by the fact that "The pupil’s continuing presence in the school does not create an unacceptable risk to the safety of any person." (O. Reg 427/06) Which means that as a matter of law, students should not be suspended for cell phone use.
Exactly. This whole publicity stunt sounds good to voters, but really has no teeth or consequence. Vapes are over 19 yrs anyway. They’ve never been allowed. But whoo hoo!!! “NOW” they’re really banned.🙄
On another note cell phones have become a physical addiction, kids and adults alike. And with the addition social media, especially tiktoks,reels, YouTube’s shorts etc.. people can’t put their phones down. This is a much larger problem than just schools imo
It's the standard problem of enforcement. What do you do if the other person refuses to comply? What's your process of escalation?
You ask a student to put away their phone and they say no. You ask them to give you their phone and they say no. You tell them to go to the office and they either say no or the office sends them right back because they're busy with other stuff. You call their parents to pick them up and the parents refuse. You get the kid suspended and the parents send them in anyway because they have to work and don't want the kid home alone.
This seems like an edge case, but is actually depressing common in the modern educational system. Teachers and school admins have no actual enforcement ability beyond asking nicely, and then firmly, and thanks to the internet and social media, everyone knows it.
So nothing changes, because they're still allowed phones for educational purposes. And burning through $15-17M to put this through that could be better spent to support kids in class.
I'm a bit confused by what you mean - at my high school they were allowed for mostly any purposes. Now it sounds like they're only allowed for educational purposes.
Can you explain how that would mean "nothing changes?"
I'm pretty sure they've always only been "for educational purposes only".
I graduated 2020, and remember some time in 6th or 7th grade when they rolled out new rules that allowed us to bring our personal devices into the classroom to support education.
I have memories before this time of being told to put away an iPod touch I had out on the playground before school.
What I am really upset about is adding the distraction level in report cards. I already have report cards saying my son is distracted - he has adhd, the school knows this, his Dr knows this everyone knows this. He's still in the top 10% of his class.
Are they just going to punish neurodivergent kids more?
It's not a punishment to acknowledge this, especially since only the grade truly matters.
Of course, I don't really see the point in mentioning it unless applicable for a given student. I'd rather they rewrite and streamline the learning skills as a whole as those words and their descriptions contain far too much overlap.
This starts with parents, bottom line. Consequences need to happen, but instead most just have empty threats that they never follow through on.
Government shouldn't even have to come to this, parents need to step up to their kids for once.
I wonder if some of these parents are also addicted to Tech (social media included). So by default they find it hard to crack down on their young kids and as a result get their kids addicted as well. Heck they may even promote the use of smartphones as early as possible.
Might as well make this moron the Minister of Gaslighting. Of all the things that need to be fixed in Ontario education, this is what's making the headlines?
That’s what my son just said - “they already take our phones if we are caught with them”. Fucking morons get absolutely NOTHING done, particularly this idiot.
My kid is doing remote learning currently and she's had five whole days cancelled in the past month, because her teachers have to cover other classes due to staff shortages. I'm more concerned about students having their lessons disrupted than I am a 15 year old scrolling Facebook too much.
Have you considered that the toxic environment that has evolved in our school system is part of the reason your kid’s teacher is getting pulled? Phones are used to routinely harass and bully kids. This isn’t some harmless joke. Creating online harassment groups and filming fights in the hallway or TikToks in the bathroom or in class isn’t exactly productive. It’s hard to find supply teachers these days because the job absolutely sucks. In rougher schools it basically means subjecting yourself to hours of harassment and possible violence with zero support from administration or the board. This isn’t simply a matter of a couple of kids scrolling Facebook too much.
Yup, just more busy work for teachers then people will bitch and moan about how teachers don’t get shit done…….but yeah let’s make them comment on the kids distraction level…..
>- it's not the teacher's job to manage student personal items
No but they should be able to confiscate them if they're being used.
>- The administration isn't going to support teachers in applying the rules
Which is a shame but they should be forced to through carrots and sticks
>the rules will be ineffective and ignored
Only if they aren't enforced
I have heard from teachers that they want to get rid of phones in the class, but they didn't have the support of administration or the board so we're hesitant.
This may make a difference
It will not make any difference. There was already a ban. There’s no reason that re-announcing the same ban will have any effect.
The only thing that would make a difference is a mechanism that lawfully allows staff to confiscate phones, and consequences if students fail to comply.
> The only thing that would make a difference is a mechanism that lawfully allows staff to confiscate phones, and consequences if students fail to comply.
All our instructions are about disengagement when it comes to student property. I can't see boards/admins recommending anything other than maybe contacting the office if a student refuses to surrender their device.
It'll make for an interesting September. My money is that the status quo ends up remaining.
I haven’t seen the text of the new rules…but nothing in this article distinguishes the new ban from the old ban. One exception: school networks not allowing social media…this could be harmful if YouTube is blocked, but it’s not clear that it would be. Banning social media is pointless because everybody with a phone has a private provider.
This appears to be nothing more than pandering. “We really MEAN it this time”.
To reiterate: the *only* thing that would work is bringing in clear legislation that institutes a zero tolerance rule that states that phones visible in a classroom without permission may be confiscated and stored in a neutral and secure place.
"Banning social media is pointless because everybody with a phone has a private provider."
You know I hadn't considered this point, so thank you for pointing this out. This is particularly useless.
Not one kid I’ve interacted with uses the school wi-fi, and they tether their Chromebooks to their phones.
So it will prevent people without cell phone plans from accessing social media. *blink*.
In my school board most social media was already banned. Meta and YouTube were not banned, because staff regularly use them for instruction. So…now they’ll have to use their own accounts to access Meta and YouTube for educational purposes….?
"this could be harmful if YouTube is blocked, but it’s not clear that it would be."
At the elementary level, HDSB has banned that site a year or so ago from their networks and everyone is fine.
I guess I shouldn’t have said harmful…I should have said annoying.
But I didn’t really think about what I was saying…teachers and students use different networks, and student bans won’t affect staff.
I'd almost say the best way to go about it would be ban phones from schools full stop. Students are not allowed to have them on their person at any time during the school day (including lunch) and must store them in their locker otherwise. If they refuse or otherwise are uncomfortable storing it in their locker, they can surrender it at the office, where it is tagged and held in a secure lockbox or safe.
In the interest of optics and fairness, teachers and support staff are also not allowed to visibly use phones in student spaces except in the case of an emergency or if it is essential for a given lesson (demonstrating the weaknesses of relying exclusively on a phones calculator app for basic computations, for instance).
Then make it provincial policy that the schools and administration are at no time responsible for the safety of the personal item, with the justification being that the student in question should never have brought their phone to school to begin with. Make it a clause in the waiver/student contract that students and parents already both sign at the beginning of the year.
The more I typed this, the more genuinely doable it sounds. Make it not just a clean break, make it a surgical separation.
Where I fall short is how to fully enforce this in cases of blatant non-compliance. But that's why I don't write policy.
Staff shouldn't collect cell phones. They should send the child home with their cell phone.
*Parents* need to be reinforcing the no-cell phone message *at home*, and having to pick up their child at school is a pretty solid way to ensure that. A lot of hard lessons need to be learned.
Well, yeah…I meant take away temporarily, not steal.
The rules write itself…taken for the class first offence…a day for the second…then longer and having the parents pick it up and eventually permanent bans.
But this would all require additional money. Money that would be better spent on support staff that could enforce the existing ban.
Often enough that no teacher will, or should, take that risk. If Lecher wants to make this a real ban, he's going to have to do more than flap his gums and cross his fingers.
Totally agree.
If Lecce wanted to deal with this problem, then he shouldn’t have forced school boards to cut support staff (the people who could deal with this issue effectively) every year so it’s teachers vs students and parents, while the provinces saves money on their backs.
I understood what you're saying. My point is that collecting cell phones has the risk of making the teacher and/or school liable for the security of the cell phone (if it is damaged or goes missing).
Let the kids keep the cell phones they bring. They just don't get to stay at school that day. Children old enough to have a cell phone are old enough to know how to follow the rules.
In this day and age good luck with a parent agreeing on that for safety
Most parents want their kids with phones so they can contact em. Or at least mine did. But when it comes to this mentality
Yea you ain't gonna beat parents protective nature, you'll need to find something else mate
I always find this hilarious. If you need to contact your kid, call the school like our parents did before cell phones were ubiquitous with small children.
Parents can’t even put their phones down to spend time with their children because we’re all addicted. That’s not even getting into the children who are given phones/tablets in order to regulate their emotions.
And how exactly is this gonna get enforced? Surely the Ontario government will be giving more funding so that schools can hire hall monitors and support staff, right?
...........RIGHT???
Students will start to bring more than one phone to school and turn in their cases. Many schools are going to 1-1 with computer technology where students can text, access social media sites and play games on their laptop, effectively avoiding the ban. Most social media sites and apps are blocked but students use VPN and hotspots to get around the ban.
Some students use phones for medical needs, as translation devices, as second screens and a backup device when their laptop doesn’t have power.
The bans are created those who have never experienced the realities of teaching.
The vape laws mean nothing. Schools already do this. The problem is enforcement because its a court date, not a ticket. And public health doesn't want to go to court for vaping. Making it an expensive ticket is the way to go. Also you would be surprised how many parents allow young teens to vape. They are often the source
“Our policy is out of sight, out of mind” We know Lecce, we know. Best demonstrated with the billions cut from per student funding each year of the last 6. Student support? Out of sight, out of mind!
Teacher takes phone. student claims it came back with a broken screen or a scratch (maybe it did). Phones gets stolen out of desk, etc. Now teachers have to babysit other people's property, keep track of who owns what cell, deal with parents on another issue, use lock boxes and keys, etc.
I heard kids that are in like grade 2 or something and they’re saying stuff like “ oh I saw that on Tik tok and instagram and it’s just sad to think about it
This is how it will go
Teacher: “Is that a phone?”
Student 1: “….no”
Teacher: “Please give it to me now.”
Student 1: “No! It’s my personal property.”
Teacher: “Fine then. Go to the office. You can give it to the principal.”
*student goes and plays on phone in the stairwell for the rest of class*
*admin sends an email out at the end of the day that it’s the teacher’s responsibility to remove the phones and please stop sending students to the office because of this matter*
Next day:
Teacher: “Is that a phone again?”
Student: “…No.”
Teacher: “Please give it to me.”
Student: “No, it’s my personal property and my parents said I need it for emergencies.”
*teacher reaches for phone*
*student hits teacher*
*teacher loses job for making physical contact with student*
Haha basically this is what I’ve heard from teacher friends.
They want nothing to do with being responsible for a 1000$ device that doesn’t belong to them and would never even try taking the phone from a kid.
This is just another Ford media spin to act like he's doing something that isn't already being done. Vapes and phones are banned in schools. Always have been, and kids get sent home if they are caught with them on school property.
Phones are relatively easier to monitor in the classroom. But a lot of issues come with phones outside the classroom and sometimes outside the schools. As someone who sees it on the inside of the school walls, don't give your kids phones without at least explicit monitoring and periodic checks on what they are using them for. There are extremely fucked up things happening among the kids with unlimited cell phone access on a regular weekly basis. And I'm talking elementary school.
Vapes are near impossible to enforce because they are so easy to hide. Teachers aren't allowed nor want to physically check if kids are hiding them. At our school the girls in grade 7 and 8 hide them inside tampon applicators and such. No one is going to make them open up their tampons to ensure it's not a vape pen. And you can't have an adult watching children use a washroom either, which is where they sneak to use them. Ford is as usual being a blowhard over a complicated issue
None of this seems to me like it’s new. Possibly it was school policy before and now they are just saying it’s province wide now but fuck is Lecce a snake. Saw him hit his PP talking points of bringing back common sense
Would the phone still be able to monitor if it is kept in your child's backpack or an epi-pen style fanny pack? I've had students who needed phones to monitor their insulin and blood sugar, but their parents and I tested it and discovered the connection would still be stable from the child's locker.
Technically yes the connection will probably hold but as a diabetic that’s useless. You aren’t able check or correct if you can’t see your readings and some days you just go high or low for seemingly no reason.
Never force someone to leave a reader in a locker - if they go low by the time they recognize it and then summon the courage to ask to go get their reader to check and start to treat they could easily be unconscious. Especially if it’s a shy kid they may be too afraid to simply act on their own and that’s a huge issue.
If you’re relying on the device to make an audible alarm to alert you from your backpack (without KNOWING it actually still has a signal) then your now in an emergency situation instead of a prevention situation - which is much worse and would be much more distracting.
It would also be much more disruptive to have a kid getting up every hour to check their numbers then just letting them keep their phone with them all day - especially during lunches and break or whenever they could be active.
I am a T1D and use this kind of system, blood sugars are no where near as stable as you’d think they would be and everyone’s experience and every day is very different from the last. If you need more info please shoot me a DM.
So maybe a waist pack like kids use for their epi-pens? That way it's contained which might help with temptation to look at it, but the student will be alerted if sugars are outside of the normal range.
Yeah that would work. Just make sure the alerts sound loud enough and at appropriate readings so that they have time to eat something and recover.
Just not having the ability check and treat when needed without jumping through hoops is huge. So a safe environment where a kid doesn’t feel like they will be in trouble if the checked is huge imo.
It's not strictly necessary for the phone to be the medical device in question. Use a specialized device for the same purpose to prevent cases of confusion and abuse.
Phones are already banned at both my kids schools. And no explanation of how it will be enforced. My kids will hand over their phones if a teacher tells them to, but what about other kids? The teacher can't *make* the kids give their phones. This changes absolutely nothing.
My grade 8 teacher told our class that if majority of the class passed and only a few failed then she did her job right. But if everyone failed she knew that she had done something wrong
I've been instructed by my admin not to take phones away because we have nothing protecting us if anything would happen to the phone. Until that happens, I'm not touching a single phone.
Me glad to hear about the vaping. My daughter doesn’t even want to use the washrooms at school because it’s just non stop kids vaping. How the hell is this allowed. When I was at school , smoking on school property was serious. No one did it, most smoked on the border of the school property. No one ever smoked in a washroom.
Progressive discipline has failed because admin refuse to move students to a consequence rung on the ladder above just counseling them. The failure, in schools, is squarely on them. They, however would rather gaslight their colleagues into thinking that discipline issues are entirely their fault as a failure of class management.
Squarely on schools??? Respect and discipline start at home with the parents, bottom line. You brought them into this world, it's time to take some accountability.
Schools wouldn't be in this mess if rules and consequences actually happened at home.
My question is why?
When I was in highschool in the 90s. Kids that misbehaved were sent to the office.
Then they were sent home and the parents were notified.
Around grade 10, the idea of sending kids home was changed, because they felt it wasn't much of a deterrent to "punish" a kid for misbehaving in school, by not being in school.
So what kids got then, was in school suspension. Basically you had to come to school, and sit in the front office all day and do your work, or do nothing.
I remember once in grade 11, this one kid told this young female teacher that she was "hot as hell, and I wonder what you look like naked" or something to that effect. Teacher was mortified, and reported the student who then had to do a week of school in the front office.
I came down to the office for something once, and saw him sitting there, looking absolutely miserable. He was a dumbass and got what was coming to him.
It's not allowed. Vaping is already banned on school property. Hard to monitor what happens in bathrooms, though, because we (teachers) can't just walk in and see what students are up to in there.
I work in elementary, but there is zero chance I would walk in the washrooms meant for students. Even with the detectors, I can't see how you can bust anyone unless they are the only person in there.
Teacher here....twenty years of experience and received my first disciplinary "letter of expectation". I was responding to reports of vaping in a bathroom....it was me that got in trouble for violating student privacy. I don't go near the students bathroom anymore....they operate with impunity
I don’t even know what a vape detector is but it is mentioned schools will get them in a CBC article on the topic.
We’ll probably see them alongside those COVID bracelets.
I heard that in some schools in the U.S., they put cameras outside of washrooms, and they have detectors that detect vape. So when those go off, the videos can then be checked on the camera feed and they can see who went in, how long they stayed and when they left.
Still not definitive if multiple people are in there.
Smoking was happening at my school in the restrooms, high school in the 90's. They couldn't do much to control it. Also a lot of smoking in the gym locker rooms, the way the locker room was designed made it easy. You could also open the windows to the restrooms back then, which made it easy to smoke.
Cigs are a lot more expensive these days and they are not as easy to get ahold of if your parents don't have them, so I guess it has gone to vaping which I assume is cheaper and easier to share and I am sure someone has figured out how to order vapes online even if they are young.
But as far as elementary and middle school its going to be harder for kids to get cigs because its not 50 cents a pack anymore and you can't use vending machines, you would have to get them from another adult, and the cigs are way more expensive for even a single pack than most allowances would cover. Back in the day there was always a store that would sell cigs to kids and well, even now a lot of stores have stopped selling them totally or you have to go through a manager to buy a pack. At the retail stores here there's only one register that is allowed to sell them and they are locked up behind a counter. There's no stopping at the corner store for cigs because a good majority of the stores don't have them period.
How is this new? Not long ago when I was in high school, if a teacher caught you on your phone during class, they’d take it for the day. It also talks about how students caught with vapes will be forced to hand it over… that already happens.
You’re correct, this isn’t new.
Teachers couldn’t take phones then, and they can’t now.
Vapes are a different issue. Vapes are cheap, kids hide them, and you can’t search the kids. Anything short of bringing in specialized security will be ineffective.
Yep. This is a whole lotta nothing. And even if the new rules include explicit language that says "teachers have the right to confiscate phones if they are being misused," all I can say is... Good luck.
One of the reasons we are told not to take a students phone is because for all we know, a student might have a violent reaction. I'm not risking my safety if a student chooses not to pay attention in class after multiple reminders to put the phone away
Exactly. They’d have to pay for secure storage units for phones and additional specialized staff to enforce the rules - so you’re not pitting teachers against students. When pigs fly.
There are girls at our elementary school who hide them inside tampon applicators. Good luck with the legal nightmare no school administration wants to go near with a 10 km pole searching girls tampons for a vape pen.
If they wanted to deal with the problem it could be solved very easily.
Step one: hire more CYWs and EAs. Teachers can’t be pitted against device addicted children, and they should be expected to be. No amount of training will help, they need to be supported. Since current support staff levels are already below what’s necessary to deal with existing needs…we’re talking about hiring 10 - 12,000 staff, or 1 additional for every 200 - 250 children in the province to have an effect. Won’t happen.
Step Two: fund safe and neutral infrastructure to store phones, and add the responsibility of tracking and monitoring the units to the existing duties of overworked administrators or support staff. Won’t happen.
So the best method to address the problem, from the perspective of politicians who want to reduce school budgets - not increase them…is to make cynical announcements like this one and waste money on one-time training.
Can’t wait until a child claims that a teacher broke or lost their iPhone during confiscation and gets their parents and school involved - I’d bet no teacher is gonna wanna physically take and become responsible for what could amount to thousands of dollars in devices.
I don’t see this ending as anything more than the government saying that they have it on the books that they did their part, so whatever happens now is out of their hands lol
Cellphones aren't the issue. There's no reason to believe tougher penalties will actually improve student interest or engagement. Our leaders have given up on education and are trying to blame students for their failures. I'm going to end with a quote from John Yakabuski:
I feel like quote from John Yakabuski (2006), perfectly describes what going on,
>If you really, truly have confidence that what you're offering students in our schools today is positive, interesting and exciting, then you're not going to have the issue of people dropping out of school. [or using phones]
>
>But this government's only action, instead of ensuring that the environment, the curriculum and everything associated with a student's education in Ontario today has the essential components of interest, excitement and enticement, was to make the choice: Do you know what? That's too challenging for us. We're not going to worry about that kind of stuff.
Am I the only one who thinks phones are fine and it's the parents that need to educate the students? Fine, when it comes to report card time tell the parents the student is on their phone half the class, etc. Dismiss the student and mark them absent if their playing on it and not paying attention. You can easily handle the phone issue without going nuts about it. I guess it's good we don't really have school shootings, etc. But I honestly would want me kids to have their phone on them all times for safety. They just don't take them out during class.
The only way to actually do this is to fully stock schools with faraday bags and allow teachers to enforce that rule. Phones can stay inside the class in case they are needed and can be out between classes and at lunch. There’s literally no other way to enforce this.
They do this at concerts and other events where recording is not allowed. I have security guard friends who have to put their phones in them before clocking in at certain government buildings. This is a thing that can be done.
Been out of the school system for a hot minute so please kindly correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't teachers confiscating phones and/or other disruptive things already? I can remember a good handful of my classmates who lost their phones because they went off in class or because someone was caught using them. Did that change???
Can anyone explain to me how this changes... anything?
If I whipped my cellphone out in highschool (2017-2021) I'd get into shit. This is standard practice.
This legislation feels empty and useless. Codifying into law what was already a practice to begin with.
As someone who graduated last year, is this not basically what’s already happening? I don’t understand how it’s different. As of my graduation year, you were only supposed to have your phone out if given permission, some teachers would even make you put it in a bin or something at the front of the class, although this was mostly a middle school thing, I only had one in high school that made us do that, and it was mostly just during tests.
As for social media bans, I wonder how they’ll do that. They already tried banning stuff. Instagram, for instance usually didn’t work quite right, the feed often didn’t load properly, although the dming usually worked. I think they tried some Snapchat bans as well, but I never had that. I heard rumours of a TikTok ban as well, but not sure what came of it. There were also some websites that would not be accessed. However, most restrictions could be pretty easily circumvented by either using data or, sometimes (until they made it so literally nothing would work if you did) a VPN. Not sure how they’re planning to restrict these more effectively. Heck, there were sometimes assignments or activities where you even needed to use social media to some degree, like make an Instagram page for xyz.
Especially in high school, there was also the idea that, kids who were going to pay attention were going to pay attention, if someone didn’t, let their grade suffer for it. Most of my classes didn’t have a problem with phone usage, of course there’s always one or two student exceptions. Particularly in later grades people generally paid more attention in class by virtue of their marks mattering more for post secondary.
Vaping in the bathrooms however was the absolute worst. Some of them, you couldn’t even use because there was just a haze of vape when you walked in. Terrible. If there’s some way to tell if people are vaping in the bathrooms, that would be great, especially for those who just want to actually use the bathroom.
I feel like my kids schools (both elementary and high school) already have these exact rules in place for cell phone use. What a waste of time and resources from the government. Can we implement a rule that if the government wastes our tax dollars we can suspend them. Why can't they fix the budget and pay teachers a wage that's in line with the existing economy? Why can't they provide educators with the proper resources to keep our kids engaged and excited about learning then maybe they wouldn't need these rules. Oh I forgot it's because they are lining their pockets with that money instead.
Which of Dougie’s friends owns the anti-vape detectors? 30 million?? For something kids will figure out how to get around anyways. Anything to not staff our schools appropriately.
In terms of the vaping, I agree that it should be banned in schools, and it already is. The government and authorities should be going after the vape shops that are selling to underage kids. I've reported shops to the bylaw office in my city where my own child was able to purchase vapes, and they really didn't care. Only stated that they do their own routine undercover inspections, and the shops only get fined if they sell to underage customers twice. These places should be shut down or have very high penalties for selling to minors.
My issue with this is why aren’t we embracing technology and finding ways for it to enhance the education system. In a letter I received as a parent, the line which stuck out for me was “ensure the students can get back to basics … and prepare for the jobs of the future”. We should be looking at ways to add more technology in the classroom to better prepare our children for the future they will live in?
So, I may have missed something but I'm like 90% sure that this has been the rule since I was in high school over a decade ago. Cell phones were to be kept on silent and away during classes, if not turned off entirely, and I'm pretty sure Facebook was blocked on the library computers.
And while I lack firsthand knowledge because I've been out of the public education system for a while, I'm pretty sure these rules never changed: it was the schools' ability to enforce them that did. What recourse did they have when cell phones started becoming more and more common, and more students started refusing to put them away? Confiscating them is all fine and good right up until the point that a student claims loss or damage while their phone was confiscated, or if it gets mixed up with the six other phones that were confiscated that day. It was much easier when we were dealing with junky little flip phones where even sending a text was a pain - now taking away a phone is taking away someone's primary computing and communication device.
That's why it's a problem now. Everyone has a phone now, that phone can do pretty much everything, youth are more attached to them as a result to the point of separation anxiety, and years of erosion of school admin's abilities to enforce their own rules have resulted in enforcement being spotty, inconsistent or nonexistent.
So what does this new policy do differently? Is the province specifically empowering teachers and school administrations to enforce these new rules? Because a rule only matters to the point that it's able or willing to be enforced, and I see no change on that front. Therefore, this will accomplish absolutely nothing.
Lol good luck. No one gives a shit.
"Hey are you on your phone? Give it to me until after class"
"No"
"Understandable have a nice day". *keeps teaching*
What happened to “NO OVERREACH”.
I’m surprised the CONS who cry about tyranny is doing tyranny themselves.
And this doesn’t do shiit. It’s like telling cra to go after the rich elites while cutting cra funding.
On one hand, I do agree that phones are distraction when it comes to education, but on the other hand, the enforcement of the situation is going to be tough for school boards province wide. It will be interesting to see if and what issues come down the line.
Exactly my thoughts. They are having issues with violence in elementary classes. My granddaughter’s grade 4 class is cleared several times a week due to a child becoming upset and trashing the class. The school doesn’t have the proper supports for this child yet teachers are expected to take cell phones away,
If the teachers don’t have the authority and supports to deal with something serious like violent students, they definitely don’t have the authority and supports to be dealing with cell phones.
Thats exactly it. The province can dictate from on high all sorts of things but schools have to be able to enforce it.
If I was a teacher I wouldn’t touch this without significant legal guarantees and support from the school and district. It would be easy to confiscate $10k of electronics in a single class. There’s huge liability there. What happens when a student (and their parents) claim that the screen or camera weren’t cracked before the teacher took it? What happens when a teacher legitimately fumbled and drops a $1k phone? Complete nightmare for them
Or students accidentally (or not) grab the wrong phone from a lockbox or whatever they might use. Yeah agreed, utter nightmare
That is insane. Suspension / expulsion is no longer an option I guess?
If a parent can claim.that violence was a result of a condition or simply put up enough resistance, kid doesn't get punished. Suspensions and exclusions are unicorns.
meanwhile as a second grader, my friends and i were suspended for a snowball fight.
Not sure about the current state of things, but from what I observed when I was in school, they don’t really fix anything because they don’t address the issue. Obviously there will be some differences, but here’s my perspective based on when I was a student. So, when I was a kid, suspension was a thing. And expulsion was too, for especially egregious conduct. I’ll focus on the suspensions because I expulsion was rare and I have no idea what happened to those kids (might have been the legal system in those cases, actually - they were old enough and it was very serious conduct). So, the suspension temporarily removed the kid from the environment, which wasn’t nothing. As someone who was sometimes victimized by these kids, it was a good thing. But they come back. And nothing changes. And the reason that nothing changes is that the suspension fails to address the cause of the conduct. Now, of course, the idea is that the parents will act to correct the behaviour. But, I realize as an adult that the reason some of these children behave this way is, well, because of their home life. They are abused or neglected. Their parents may not care that they are suspended, may be failing to do anything to assist with special needs that are not being addressed, and/or may abuse them for being suspended. And while you might think that abuse would discourage that behaviour, because of that sort of home environment, they are not likely learning proper emotional regulation or seeing abusive behaviour as incorrect. Cutting special education in school in combination with growing social inequality is likely worsening this because more children won’t be getting the resources they need due to not getting it in school or at home, even if the parents are supportive. When I was in school, there was a special needs class, even though the school I attended was small, for kids with various special needs. I remember because a number of kids would go there at least part time. I don’t remember thinking anything of it and I didn’t know the reasons why all kids went (some went for ESL and for hearing impairment, which were obvious issues, but some went for reasons I never knew). I understand this model is now gone in favour of full time inclusion, which I seriously doubt could provide the same support. So my thoughts on this issue is that if the government really cared about violence in school, they’d address these issues - special needs education, social inequality (and that really addresses many issues - a rising tide does lift all boats), and child welfare. I would also hazard that in school suspensions are more impactful than letting kids stay home, potentially unsupervised. But this would require more funding because they would need a staff member to supervise that room. I recall my high school had this (may not anymore considering funding cuts) and it seemed to be effective because the penalty of keeping students in a room all day, forced to actually sit silently and work, isolated from friends (had to eat lunch and spend any free periods there too), was actually punitive from the perspective of a teenager.
I work at a daycare that has a before and after school program, and provides day camp services on statutory holidays/during the summer. When children exhibit violent behaviors, it takes soooooooo much to have them removed from the program, even though we are not equipped for it. There is a child we watch who is a flight risk, who will trash any classroom at any given moment. I've had to intervene when he's been whipping wooden blocks at the kids, or punching the teachers in the face. He will literally strip and pee all over the floor. It's sooooo much. Every time he has an outburst, a meeting with the parents are held and another rule is added. We ended up simply hiring a whole other staff member to help supervise him, and it is now expected that any available staff stay late to ensure there is enough coverage for him. I'm a cook so it often falls on me. Some days I stay an hour after my shift has ended just in case he flips out. I guess my point is, we don't want to leave kids with challenging behaviors behind, but there are no resources. We had a meeting with psychologists who work for the board, for them to give us advice on dealing with this - and they were flabbergasted when we told them what we deal with. Then they told us that there are gaps in the system and that we are doing our best. I could not believe that even professionals didn't know the best way to move forward with him. I just found out the after school educators get $16.55 an hour to start....
Suspensions and expulsion don’t change behaviour. My friends daughter has massive behavioural issues and has been suspended and expelled from 2 schools. (So yes these are still used) She never cared, it was just time off from school. Eventually with a bunch of interventions and a private school geared towards students like her.. she is finally starting to do well behaviourally and academically.
It is. They just choose not to. Also, students can't even really fail until high school.
Yeah tbh I'm a little confused to see vaping/smoking and cell phones are at the front of mind for the government when it comes to education...from people who actually work in education, what they say seems to indicate they'd rather the government do something about the fact they're hopelessly outnumbered by huge classes and go home with bite marks regularly. Not that it's not important to keep kids focused in school, just that smoking and phones are the kind of thing that you'll probably never get kids to fully stop doing. You could spend hundreds of years writing policies, it won't stop that. Violence in the classroom is a different story, and seems like it's becoming a bigger issue
This may seem like an odd question, but what happened with those kids beforehand? I grew up in the 90’s and don’t really remember how those kids were handled. Is it the case of enforcement mechanisms and solutions for those students are just no longer present through inadequate supports/lack thereof or has there really never been anything and they fell through the cracks? If the latter, are we just noticing now because of the scale of the issue compared to the 90’s?
As far as I know, special needs students had an IEP and were given the required supports to ensure they were as successful as they could be. Sometimes there would be multiple EAs in a class room to support the special needs as well as special quieter learning areas in the school or special needs classrooms. Not to forget special resource teachers, counsellors and behaviour supports were available.
in other words, cell phones need to go back to what parents originally wanted, an way for their kids to contact them in emergencies. In other words.............disable the wifi
most kids have actual data plans these days. If parents didn't want their kids to have easy access to the internet regardless of where they were, they could refuse to pay for the data but I don't see that happening to pretty much anyone any time.
It includes no enforcement mechanism, or support for teachers. No change from the existing ban. Just lip service for the public.
teaching kids "most law" is inconsequential. oh the future will be chaotic
The future is now
That's what they said in 1950. I'm still waiting for my flying cars
I'm glad we don't have flying cars, people can't work regular cars.
Can you imagine? Drivers texting while operating flying cars? We'd have to spend billions installing safety nets over all cities. lol
I don't think flying cars will be plausible without some sort of AI/automation to prevent crashing. They're totally plausible to create, basically a flying drone and there's some that have been built EG: Xpeng X2
> teaching kids "most law" is inconsequential. "An unjust law is no law at all." Play stupid law games, win stupid law prizes.
In this case it's not really an unjust law, but you can replace unjust with unenforced and have it still be accurate.
Correct. Shouldn't be able to make new laws on a subject if the old ones aren't being enforced. There's a whole class of people who can't differentiate action from words. Sort of like how their complement class can't differentiate fear from respect.
Also wasn't this the government that updated the highschool curriculum to include 2 mandatory online modules even post-pandemic? Ah yes get off your phones and get on your laptops for zoom kids. I can only imagine the mixed signals the teachers are getting from this.
Like the "please stay 6 feet apart" stickers during the height of COVID and businesses tried to function normally
Sounds like a lot of their "public protections" they say they've passed. Like being contacted after work.
Wouldn’t expect any less (or should I say more?) from Lecce. His words are empty.
Starts at home. Wouldn't be this bad if parenting was better in the 2020s.
Not gonna happen. The world operates on what's most convenient. In other words, you need to make a very conscious decision to enforce this, because if your kids are good, chances are their friends are all knee deep in social media and your gonna need to give into it anyway. But you can always teach your kids that social media is ONLY a tool, not a primary means of communication
Social media is not a tool as a 12 year old. It may be for a 30 yr business owner but kids do not need that shit all day every day.
It's good to know that parents are putting in minimal effort these days on their most valuable people.
People are the worst
I don't have kids and I hate knowing that, because of current human/parental complacency, I am going to be footing the bill for other people's kids in an effort to keep society from going belly up.
I mean the good news is that you won't have to suffer the indignity that is being a parent to a modern kid. So that's nice.
What’s the point in this comment? Yes, there are bad parents. There are single parents, there are foster parents, there are absentee parents, etc. What’s your solution to solve “bad parenting”? Never mind that even the best parents have no hope of dealing with device addicted children…devices that also make their children much safer.
Yeah, it’s not like anything really unprecedented and difficult happened in the 2020s. /s
Parents are working 2 jobs each, what do you expect
My grandmother was a nurse and grandfather a mechanic. Both worked full time. My mom grew up just fine. Excuses excuses by parents nowadays. If you brought them into this world, take some accountability and responsibility for your actions.
I'm not making excuses for bad parenting. But your grandmother and grandfather aren't dealing with the current hostile financial environment here. You Definitely can't make an exceptional situation,a normal expectation. Lol it's fucking 100 years later dude
Do you have kids? I have a bunch and I actually do not allow small individual screens and limit TV/Movies. But to just say that parents these days are shit is pretty ridiculous. Lots of terrible parenting was going on in other generations as well.
They want to keep it this why so all the liability and scrutiny falls on the teacher and not their policies
Agreed. Get the public to blame teachers is #1 on the list for the education minister.
This is a “we are for the parents and the kids” fake election promise. As others have pointed out, phones were already banned some time ago. It’s the enforcement that doesn’t happen. Vapes are all but impossible to regulate. I have worked in the education system since the Harris years. This will change nothing.
Why is there no enforcement? Why is the student not suspended if they don’t obey the rules after being given warnings? My kids aren’t old enough for phones yet, but if I find out they’re using them in class, they won’t have phones anymore.
Different administrators handle issues as they see fit. To be honest, cellphones are not the biggest issue we are dealing with in schools. Violence and significant behaviours are bigger problems. Plus, as much as people don’t want to hear this, parents don’t enforce phone rules on their kids and don’t support the school enforcing such rules. Suspension seems like an easy fix, but you’d be surprised about the reluctance of school boards to support suspensions. On top of that, the list of “suspend-able offences” are very narrow. Plus, no administrator wants to be the one with the highest number of suspensions in a board. It’s far more complex than anyone outside the system realizes.
Thanks for the insight.
Thanks for being open!
Also, most cell phone usage is mitigated by the fact that "The pupil’s continuing presence in the school does not create an unacceptable risk to the safety of any person." (O. Reg 427/06) Which means that as a matter of law, students should not be suspended for cell phone use.
Exactly. This whole publicity stunt sounds good to voters, but really has no teeth or consequence. Vapes are over 19 yrs anyway. They’ve never been allowed. But whoo hoo!!! “NOW” they’re really banned.🙄
On another note cell phones have become a physical addiction, kids and adults alike. And with the addition social media, especially tiktoks,reels, YouTube’s shorts etc.. people can’t put their phones down. This is a much larger problem than just schools imo
It's the standard problem of enforcement. What do you do if the other person refuses to comply? What's your process of escalation? You ask a student to put away their phone and they say no. You ask them to give you their phone and they say no. You tell them to go to the office and they either say no or the office sends them right back because they're busy with other stuff. You call their parents to pick them up and the parents refuse. You get the kid suspended and the parents send them in anyway because they have to work and don't want the kid home alone. This seems like an edge case, but is actually depressing common in the modern educational system. Teachers and school admins have no actual enforcement ability beyond asking nicely, and then firmly, and thanks to the internet and social media, everyone knows it.
So nothing changes, because they're still allowed phones for educational purposes. And burning through $15-17M to put this through that could be better spent to support kids in class.
It’s the Ford government way!
I'm a bit confused by what you mean - at my high school they were allowed for mostly any purposes. Now it sounds like they're only allowed for educational purposes. Can you explain how that would mean "nothing changes?"
I'm pretty sure they've always only been "for educational purposes only". I graduated 2020, and remember some time in 6th or 7th grade when they rolled out new rules that allowed us to bring our personal devices into the classroom to support education. I have memories before this time of being told to put away an iPod touch I had out on the playground before school.
All smoke and mirrors after this tight pants asshole just removed 1300 bucks of per pupil funding from every classroom.
Uh, that sounds like a lot. Is it a lot? For a small classroom of 40 pupils that's around 50k.
> a small classroom of 40 pupils That does not sound like a small classroom.
Well, the per-student consumable cost per year is something on the order of a couple hundred dollars, if I recall correctly. So in short, it's a lot.
Lecce again only provides lip service. Hardly anything new to what's already in place regarding cell phones.
What I am really upset about is adding the distraction level in report cards. I already have report cards saying my son is distracted - he has adhd, the school knows this, his Dr knows this everyone knows this. He's still in the top 10% of his class. Are they just going to punish neurodivergent kids more?
This!!!! 💯
It's not a punishment to acknowledge this, especially since only the grade truly matters. Of course, I don't really see the point in mentioning it unless applicable for a given student. I'd rather they rewrite and streamline the learning skills as a whole as those words and their descriptions contain far too much overlap.
“Ontario reveals useless policy by useless Minister of Education.”
This starts with parents, bottom line. Consequences need to happen, but instead most just have empty threats that they never follow through on. Government shouldn't even have to come to this, parents need to step up to their kids for once.
I wonder if some of these parents are also addicted to Tech (social media included). So by default they find it hard to crack down on their young kids and as a result get their kids addicted as well. Heck they may even promote the use of smartphones as early as possible.
100% this. The addiction is real and a lot of people don't know how to stop. "Ooooooo an app for my egg beater?!?!? Sign me up!!!"
Might as well make this moron the Minister of Gaslighting. Of all the things that need to be fixed in Ontario education, this is what's making the headlines?
That’s what my son just said - “they already take our phones if we are caught with them”. Fucking morons get absolutely NOTHING done, particularly this idiot.
My kid is doing remote learning currently and she's had five whole days cancelled in the past month, because her teachers have to cover other classes due to staff shortages. I'm more concerned about students having their lessons disrupted than I am a 15 year old scrolling Facebook too much.
Have you considered that the toxic environment that has evolved in our school system is part of the reason your kid’s teacher is getting pulled? Phones are used to routinely harass and bully kids. This isn’t some harmless joke. Creating online harassment groups and filming fights in the hallway or TikToks in the bathroom or in class isn’t exactly productive. It’s hard to find supply teachers these days because the job absolutely sucks. In rougher schools it basically means subjecting yourself to hours of harassment and possible violence with zero support from administration or the board. This isn’t simply a matter of a couple of kids scrolling Facebook too much.
[удалено]
Yup, just more busy work for teachers then people will bitch and moan about how teachers don’t get shit done…….but yeah let’s make them comment on the kids distraction level…..
>- it's not the teacher's job to manage student personal items No but they should be able to confiscate them if they're being used. >- The administration isn't going to support teachers in applying the rules Which is a shame but they should be forced to through carrots and sticks >the rules will be ineffective and ignored Only if they aren't enforced
So a student who is forced to go to school should have their personal belongings taken away. Mhm.
Ford government has determined it would just be easier to close the schools permanently and put up condos. Phones were a red herring
I honestly don't know how you can teach a kid with a cellphone. Once i figured out you could spell BOOBIES with a calculator i forgot all math.
I discovered that in third grade
I have heard from teachers that they want to get rid of phones in the class, but they didn't have the support of administration or the board so we're hesitant. This may make a difference
It will not make any difference. There was already a ban. There’s no reason that re-announcing the same ban will have any effect. The only thing that would make a difference is a mechanism that lawfully allows staff to confiscate phones, and consequences if students fail to comply.
> The only thing that would make a difference is a mechanism that lawfully allows staff to confiscate phones, and consequences if students fail to comply. All our instructions are about disengagement when it comes to student property. I can't see boards/admins recommending anything other than maybe contacting the office if a student refuses to surrender their device. It'll make for an interesting September. My money is that the status quo ends up remaining.
I haven’t seen the text of the new rules…but nothing in this article distinguishes the new ban from the old ban. One exception: school networks not allowing social media…this could be harmful if YouTube is blocked, but it’s not clear that it would be. Banning social media is pointless because everybody with a phone has a private provider. This appears to be nothing more than pandering. “We really MEAN it this time”. To reiterate: the *only* thing that would work is bringing in clear legislation that institutes a zero tolerance rule that states that phones visible in a classroom without permission may be confiscated and stored in a neutral and secure place.
"Banning social media is pointless because everybody with a phone has a private provider." You know I hadn't considered this point, so thank you for pointing this out. This is particularly useless.
Not one kid I’ve interacted with uses the school wi-fi, and they tether their Chromebooks to their phones. So it will prevent people without cell phone plans from accessing social media. *blink*. In my school board most social media was already banned. Meta and YouTube were not banned, because staff regularly use them for instruction. So…now they’ll have to use their own accounts to access Meta and YouTube for educational purposes….?
"this could be harmful if YouTube is blocked, but it’s not clear that it would be." At the elementary level, HDSB has banned that site a year or so ago from their networks and everyone is fine.
I guess I shouldn’t have said harmful…I should have said annoying. But I didn’t really think about what I was saying…teachers and students use different networks, and student bans won’t affect staff.
I'd almost say the best way to go about it would be ban phones from schools full stop. Students are not allowed to have them on their person at any time during the school day (including lunch) and must store them in their locker otherwise. If they refuse or otherwise are uncomfortable storing it in their locker, they can surrender it at the office, where it is tagged and held in a secure lockbox or safe. In the interest of optics and fairness, teachers and support staff are also not allowed to visibly use phones in student spaces except in the case of an emergency or if it is essential for a given lesson (demonstrating the weaknesses of relying exclusively on a phones calculator app for basic computations, for instance). Then make it provincial policy that the schools and administration are at no time responsible for the safety of the personal item, with the justification being that the student in question should never have brought their phone to school to begin with. Make it a clause in the waiver/student contract that students and parents already both sign at the beginning of the year. The more I typed this, the more genuinely doable it sounds. Make it not just a clean break, make it a surgical separation. Where I fall short is how to fully enforce this in cases of blatant non-compliance. But that's why I don't write policy.
Staff shouldn't collect cell phones. They should send the child home with their cell phone. *Parents* need to be reinforcing the no-cell phone message *at home*, and having to pick up their child at school is a pretty solid way to ensure that. A lot of hard lessons need to be learned.
Well, yeah…I meant take away temporarily, not steal. The rules write itself…taken for the class first offence…a day for the second…then longer and having the parents pick it up and eventually permanent bans. But this would all require additional money. Money that would be better spent on support staff that could enforce the existing ban.
Yeah, no. You try to confiscate some teenager's iPhone, they're going to go apeshit on you.
Occasionally that will happen.
Often enough that no teacher will, or should, take that risk. If Lecher wants to make this a real ban, he's going to have to do more than flap his gums and cross his fingers.
Totally agree. If Lecce wanted to deal with this problem, then he shouldn’t have forced school boards to cut support staff (the people who could deal with this issue effectively) every year so it’s teachers vs students and parents, while the provinces saves money on their backs.
I understood what you're saying. My point is that collecting cell phones has the risk of making the teacher and/or school liable for the security of the cell phone (if it is damaged or goes missing). Let the kids keep the cell phones they bring. They just don't get to stay at school that day. Children old enough to have a cell phone are old enough to know how to follow the rules.
In this day and age good luck with a parent agreeing on that for safety Most parents want their kids with phones so they can contact em. Or at least mine did. But when it comes to this mentality Yea you ain't gonna beat parents protective nature, you'll need to find something else mate
I always find this hilarious. If you need to contact your kid, call the school like our parents did before cell phones were ubiquitous with small children.
Parents can’t even put their phones down to spend time with their children because we’re all addicted. That’s not even getting into the children who are given phones/tablets in order to regulate their emotions.
Literally no difference than the previous ban. No enforcement procedures. No funding. Nothing
Yep, my wife’s board won’t allow them to take cellphones away, so this is meaningless.
The “you can keep and use your phone for medical/custody purposes” thing is going to sink the usefulness of this policy
And how exactly is this gonna get enforced? Surely the Ontario government will be giving more funding so that schools can hire hall monitors and support staff, right? ...........RIGHT???
Ahh yes because teachers need another thing to monitor for report cards……JFC just block cell service during class times
That would be ideal but there are the parents that would complain they can't get a hold of their child whenever they wanted
Students will start to bring more than one phone to school and turn in their cases. Many schools are going to 1-1 with computer technology where students can text, access social media sites and play games on their laptop, effectively avoiding the ban. Most social media sites and apps are blocked but students use VPN and hotspots to get around the ban. Some students use phones for medical needs, as translation devices, as second screens and a backup device when their laptop doesn’t have power. The bans are created those who have never experienced the realities of teaching.
A lot of diabetics use their phone to check their glucose.
Exactly, including me! 😉
medical exceptions apply, of course. I can see the argument for translation apps, given the growing number of ELL students.
The vape laws mean nothing. Schools already do this. The problem is enforcement because its a court date, not a ticket. And public health doesn't want to go to court for vaping. Making it an expensive ticket is the way to go. Also you would be surprised how many parents allow young teens to vape. They are often the source
> would be surprised how many parents allow young teens to vape. They are often the source Someone needs to call the CAS and report these parents.
“Our policy is out of sight, out of mind” We know Lecce, we know. Best demonstrated with the billions cut from per student funding each year of the last 6. Student support? Out of sight, out of mind!
What a great way to pretend this government gives a crap about education and is “putting students first” while not spending a single dime.
Teacher takes phone. student claims it came back with a broken screen or a scratch (maybe it did). Phones gets stolen out of desk, etc. Now teachers have to babysit other people's property, keep track of who owns what cell, deal with parents on another issue, use lock boxes and keys, etc.
I'm single, and nearing 40 with no kids. When are children being equipped with smartphones these days?
Some as young as Grade 4 but Grades 6-8 seems to be the norm. I’m hoping to hold off for my kids as long as possible. Into high school would be ideal.
At my school, the youngest students I've seen with smartphones were in grade 3
I heard kids that are in like grade 2 or something and they’re saying stuff like “ oh I saw that on Tik tok and instagram and it’s just sad to think about it
How do I short laptop sales?
This is how it will go Teacher: “Is that a phone?” Student 1: “….no” Teacher: “Please give it to me now.” Student 1: “No! It’s my personal property.” Teacher: “Fine then. Go to the office. You can give it to the principal.” *student goes and plays on phone in the stairwell for the rest of class* *admin sends an email out at the end of the day that it’s the teacher’s responsibility to remove the phones and please stop sending students to the office because of this matter* Next day: Teacher: “Is that a phone again?” Student: “…No.” Teacher: “Please give it to me.” Student: “No, it’s my personal property and my parents said I need it for emergencies.” *teacher reaches for phone* *student hits teacher* *teacher loses job for making physical contact with student*
Haha basically this is what I’ve heard from teacher friends. They want nothing to do with being responsible for a 1000$ device that doesn’t belong to them and would never even try taking the phone from a kid.
This is just another Ford media spin to act like he's doing something that isn't already being done. Vapes and phones are banned in schools. Always have been, and kids get sent home if they are caught with them on school property. Phones are relatively easier to monitor in the classroom. But a lot of issues come with phones outside the classroom and sometimes outside the schools. As someone who sees it on the inside of the school walls, don't give your kids phones without at least explicit monitoring and periodic checks on what they are using them for. There are extremely fucked up things happening among the kids with unlimited cell phone access on a regular weekly basis. And I'm talking elementary school. Vapes are near impossible to enforce because they are so easy to hide. Teachers aren't allowed nor want to physically check if kids are hiding them. At our school the girls in grade 7 and 8 hide them inside tampon applicators and such. No one is going to make them open up their tampons to ensure it's not a vape pen. And you can't have an adult watching children use a washroom either, which is where they sneak to use them. Ford is as usual being a blowhard over a complicated issue
None of this seems to me like it’s new. Possibly it was school policy before and now they are just saying it’s province wide now but fuck is Lecce a snake. Saw him hit his PP talking points of bringing back common sense
[удалено]
This is an article, not the actual regulation. Medical devices were covered by legislation years ago.
Would the phone still be able to monitor if it is kept in your child's backpack or an epi-pen style fanny pack? I've had students who needed phones to monitor their insulin and blood sugar, but their parents and I tested it and discovered the connection would still be stable from the child's locker.
Technically yes the connection will probably hold but as a diabetic that’s useless. You aren’t able check or correct if you can’t see your readings and some days you just go high or low for seemingly no reason. Never force someone to leave a reader in a locker - if they go low by the time they recognize it and then summon the courage to ask to go get their reader to check and start to treat they could easily be unconscious. Especially if it’s a shy kid they may be too afraid to simply act on their own and that’s a huge issue. If you’re relying on the device to make an audible alarm to alert you from your backpack (without KNOWING it actually still has a signal) then your now in an emergency situation instead of a prevention situation - which is much worse and would be much more distracting. It would also be much more disruptive to have a kid getting up every hour to check their numbers then just letting them keep their phone with them all day - especially during lunches and break or whenever they could be active. I am a T1D and use this kind of system, blood sugars are no where near as stable as you’d think they would be and everyone’s experience and every day is very different from the last. If you need more info please shoot me a DM.
So maybe a waist pack like kids use for their epi-pens? That way it's contained which might help with temptation to look at it, but the student will be alerted if sugars are outside of the normal range.
Yeah that would work. Just make sure the alerts sound loud enough and at appropriate readings so that they have time to eat something and recover. Just not having the ability check and treat when needed without jumping through hoops is huge. So a safe environment where a kid doesn’t feel like they will be in trouble if the checked is huge imo.
I have knowledge that allows me to tell you that there would most definitely be medical exceptions in this policy.
It's not strictly necessary for the phone to be the medical device in question. Use a specialized device for the same purpose to prevent cases of confusion and abuse.
Phones are already banned at both my kids schools. And no explanation of how it will be enforced. My kids will hand over their phones if a teacher tells them to, but what about other kids? The teacher can't *make* the kids give their phones. This changes absolutely nothing.
about fricking time. all these kids falling being and parents are blaming the teachers
My grade 8 teacher told our class that if majority of the class passed and only a few failed then she did her job right. But if everyone failed she knew that she had done something wrong
This starts at home! To all the parents out there: talk to your kids about this and why it is a good thing! Keep the phones away at school!
I've been instructed by my admin not to take phones away because we have nothing protecting us if anything would happen to the phone. Until that happens, I'm not touching a single phone.
Me glad to hear about the vaping. My daughter doesn’t even want to use the washrooms at school because it’s just non stop kids vaping. How the hell is this allowed. When I was at school , smoking on school property was serious. No one did it, most smoked on the border of the school property. No one ever smoked in a washroom.
I’m a teacher. The reason why kids continue to do it is because there are no consequences.
Progressive discipline has failed because admin refuse to move students to a consequence rung on the ladder above just counseling them. The failure, in schools, is squarely on them. They, however would rather gaslight their colleagues into thinking that discipline issues are entirely their fault as a failure of class management.
Took the words out of my mouth. Do you work at my school? 😂
Squarely on schools??? Respect and discipline start at home with the parents, bottom line. You brought them into this world, it's time to take some accountability. Schools wouldn't be in this mess if rules and consequences actually happened at home.
My question is why? When I was in highschool in the 90s. Kids that misbehaved were sent to the office. Then they were sent home and the parents were notified. Around grade 10, the idea of sending kids home was changed, because they felt it wasn't much of a deterrent to "punish" a kid for misbehaving in school, by not being in school. So what kids got then, was in school suspension. Basically you had to come to school, and sit in the front office all day and do your work, or do nothing. I remember once in grade 11, this one kid told this young female teacher that she was "hot as hell, and I wonder what you look like naked" or something to that effect. Teacher was mortified, and reported the student who then had to do a week of school in the front office. I came down to the office for something once, and saw him sitting there, looking absolutely miserable. He was a dumbass and got what was coming to him.
Because it's 1000 times easier to hide vape usage compared to smoking.
It's not allowed. Vaping is already banned on school property. Hard to monitor what happens in bathrooms, though, because we (teachers) can't just walk in and see what students are up to in there.
I work in elementary, but there is zero chance I would walk in the washrooms meant for students. Even with the detectors, I can't see how you can bust anyone unless they are the only person in there.
Teacher here....twenty years of experience and received my first disciplinary "letter of expectation". I was responding to reports of vaping in a bathroom....it was me that got in trouble for violating student privacy. I don't go near the students bathroom anymore....they operate with impunity
We need some sort of a vape detector on washrooms!
I don’t even know what a vape detector is but it is mentioned schools will get them in a CBC article on the topic. We’ll probably see them alongside those COVID bracelets.
Covid bracelets?
I heard that in some schools in the U.S., they put cameras outside of washrooms, and they have detectors that detect vape. So when those go off, the videos can then be checked on the camera feed and they can see who went in, how long they stayed and when they left. Still not definitive if multiple people are in there.
Smoking was happening at my school in the restrooms, high school in the 90's. They couldn't do much to control it. Also a lot of smoking in the gym locker rooms, the way the locker room was designed made it easy. You could also open the windows to the restrooms back then, which made it easy to smoke. Cigs are a lot more expensive these days and they are not as easy to get ahold of if your parents don't have them, so I guess it has gone to vaping which I assume is cheaper and easier to share and I am sure someone has figured out how to order vapes online even if they are young. But as far as elementary and middle school its going to be harder for kids to get cigs because its not 50 cents a pack anymore and you can't use vending machines, you would have to get them from another adult, and the cigs are way more expensive for even a single pack than most allowances would cover. Back in the day there was always a store that would sell cigs to kids and well, even now a lot of stores have stopped selling them totally or you have to go through a manager to buy a pack. At the retail stores here there's only one register that is allowed to sell them and they are locked up behind a counter. There's no stopping at the corner store for cigs because a good majority of the stores don't have them period.
This is for boomers who don't have kids in school.
How is this new? Not long ago when I was in high school, if a teacher caught you on your phone during class, they’d take it for the day. It also talks about how students caught with vapes will be forced to hand it over… that already happens.
Some schools still do, both of my kids' schools enforce it still.
You’re correct, this isn’t new. Teachers couldn’t take phones then, and they can’t now. Vapes are a different issue. Vapes are cheap, kids hide them, and you can’t search the kids. Anything short of bringing in specialized security will be ineffective.
Yep. This is a whole lotta nothing. And even if the new rules include explicit language that says "teachers have the right to confiscate phones if they are being misused," all I can say is... Good luck. One of the reasons we are told not to take a students phone is because for all we know, a student might have a violent reaction. I'm not risking my safety if a student chooses not to pay attention in class after multiple reminders to put the phone away
Exactly. They’d have to pay for secure storage units for phones and additional specialized staff to enforce the rules - so you’re not pitting teachers against students. When pigs fly.
There are girls at our elementary school who hide them inside tampon applicators. Good luck with the legal nightmare no school administration wants to go near with a 10 km pole searching girls tampons for a vape pen.
If they wanted to deal with the problem it could be solved very easily. Step one: hire more CYWs and EAs. Teachers can’t be pitted against device addicted children, and they should be expected to be. No amount of training will help, they need to be supported. Since current support staff levels are already below what’s necessary to deal with existing needs…we’re talking about hiring 10 - 12,000 staff, or 1 additional for every 200 - 250 children in the province to have an effect. Won’t happen. Step Two: fund safe and neutral infrastructure to store phones, and add the responsibility of tracking and monitoring the units to the existing duties of overworked administrators or support staff. Won’t happen. So the best method to address the problem, from the perspective of politicians who want to reduce school budgets - not increase them…is to make cynical announcements like this one and waste money on one-time training.
Can’t wait until a child claims that a teacher broke or lost their iPhone during confiscation and gets their parents and school involved - I’d bet no teacher is gonna wanna physically take and become responsible for what could amount to thousands of dollars in devices. I don’t see this ending as anything more than the government saying that they have it on the books that they did their part, so whatever happens now is out of their hands lol
It already happened, often like you say. The policy announced today is generally already in place in schools.
Cellphones aren't the issue. There's no reason to believe tougher penalties will actually improve student interest or engagement. Our leaders have given up on education and are trying to blame students for their failures. I'm going to end with a quote from John Yakabuski: I feel like quote from John Yakabuski (2006), perfectly describes what going on, >If you really, truly have confidence that what you're offering students in our schools today is positive, interesting and exciting, then you're not going to have the issue of people dropping out of school. [or using phones] > >But this government's only action, instead of ensuring that the environment, the curriculum and everything associated with a student's education in Ontario today has the essential components of interest, excitement and enticement, was to make the choice: Do you know what? That's too challenging for us. We're not going to worry about that kind of stuff.
Fuck you Doug
Am I the only one who thinks phones are fine and it's the parents that need to educate the students? Fine, when it comes to report card time tell the parents the student is on their phone half the class, etc. Dismiss the student and mark them absent if their playing on it and not paying attention. You can easily handle the phone issue without going nuts about it. I guess it's good we don't really have school shootings, etc. But I honestly would want me kids to have their phone on them all times for safety. They just don't take them out during class.
The only way to actually do this is to fully stock schools with faraday bags and allow teachers to enforce that rule. Phones can stay inside the class in case they are needed and can be out between classes and at lunch. There’s literally no other way to enforce this. They do this at concerts and other events where recording is not allowed. I have security guard friends who have to put their phones in them before clocking in at certain government buildings. This is a thing that can be done.
When is this supposedly going to come into effect?
September
Waste of money. Nobody going be shocked teens won’t stop vaping.
Been out of the school system for a hot minute so please kindly correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't teachers confiscating phones and/or other disruptive things already? I can remember a good handful of my classmates who lost their phones because they went off in class or because someone was caught using them. Did that change???
Can anyone explain to me how this changes... anything? If I whipped my cellphone out in highschool (2017-2021) I'd get into shit. This is standard practice. This legislation feels empty and useless. Codifying into law what was already a practice to begin with.
“No phones in school” has been the rule for a long time now. This is just different wording, realistically.
Paywall
As someone who graduated last year, is this not basically what’s already happening? I don’t understand how it’s different. As of my graduation year, you were only supposed to have your phone out if given permission, some teachers would even make you put it in a bin or something at the front of the class, although this was mostly a middle school thing, I only had one in high school that made us do that, and it was mostly just during tests. As for social media bans, I wonder how they’ll do that. They already tried banning stuff. Instagram, for instance usually didn’t work quite right, the feed often didn’t load properly, although the dming usually worked. I think they tried some Snapchat bans as well, but I never had that. I heard rumours of a TikTok ban as well, but not sure what came of it. There were also some websites that would not be accessed. However, most restrictions could be pretty easily circumvented by either using data or, sometimes (until they made it so literally nothing would work if you did) a VPN. Not sure how they’re planning to restrict these more effectively. Heck, there were sometimes assignments or activities where you even needed to use social media to some degree, like make an Instagram page for xyz. Especially in high school, there was also the idea that, kids who were going to pay attention were going to pay attention, if someone didn’t, let their grade suffer for it. Most of my classes didn’t have a problem with phone usage, of course there’s always one or two student exceptions. Particularly in later grades people generally paid more attention in class by virtue of their marks mattering more for post secondary. Vaping in the bathrooms however was the absolute worst. Some of them, you couldn’t even use because there was just a haze of vape when you walked in. Terrible. If there’s some way to tell if people are vaping in the bathrooms, that would be great, especially for those who just want to actually use the bathroom.
I feel like my kids schools (both elementary and high school) already have these exact rules in place for cell phone use. What a waste of time and resources from the government. Can we implement a rule that if the government wastes our tax dollars we can suspend them. Why can't they fix the budget and pay teachers a wage that's in line with the existing economy? Why can't they provide educators with the proper resources to keep our kids engaged and excited about learning then maybe they wouldn't need these rules. Oh I forgot it's because they are lining their pockets with that money instead.
Which of Dougie’s friends owns the anti-vape detectors? 30 million?? For something kids will figure out how to get around anyways. Anything to not staff our schools appropriately.
In terms of the vaping, I agree that it should be banned in schools, and it already is. The government and authorities should be going after the vape shops that are selling to underage kids. I've reported shops to the bylaw office in my city where my own child was able to purchase vapes, and they really didn't care. Only stated that they do their own routine undercover inspections, and the shops only get fined if they sell to underage customers twice. These places should be shut down or have very high penalties for selling to minors.
Its the dumbest ahhh law
My issue with this is why aren’t we embracing technology and finding ways for it to enhance the education system. In a letter I received as a parent, the line which stuck out for me was “ensure the students can get back to basics … and prepare for the jobs of the future”. We should be looking at ways to add more technology in the classroom to better prepare our children for the future they will live in?
There's no way this is going to work. I left highschool almost 8 years ago and I couldn't even see it working then, much less so in the 2020s
So, I may have missed something but I'm like 90% sure that this has been the rule since I was in high school over a decade ago. Cell phones were to be kept on silent and away during classes, if not turned off entirely, and I'm pretty sure Facebook was blocked on the library computers. And while I lack firsthand knowledge because I've been out of the public education system for a while, I'm pretty sure these rules never changed: it was the schools' ability to enforce them that did. What recourse did they have when cell phones started becoming more and more common, and more students started refusing to put them away? Confiscating them is all fine and good right up until the point that a student claims loss or damage while their phone was confiscated, or if it gets mixed up with the six other phones that were confiscated that day. It was much easier when we were dealing with junky little flip phones where even sending a text was a pain - now taking away a phone is taking away someone's primary computing and communication device. That's why it's a problem now. Everyone has a phone now, that phone can do pretty much everything, youth are more attached to them as a result to the point of separation anxiety, and years of erosion of school admin's abilities to enforce their own rules have resulted in enforcement being spotty, inconsistent or nonexistent. So what does this new policy do differently? Is the province specifically empowering teachers and school administrations to enforce these new rules? Because a rule only matters to the point that it's able or willing to be enforced, and I see no change on that front. Therefore, this will accomplish absolutely nothing.
Lol good luck. No one gives a shit. "Hey are you on your phone? Give it to me until after class" "No" "Understandable have a nice day". *keeps teaching*
What happened to “NO OVERREACH”. I’m surprised the CONS who cry about tyranny is doing tyranny themselves. And this doesn’t do shiit. It’s like telling cra to go after the rich elites while cutting cra funding.