Phones, tablets, and other electronic devices have
become ubiquitous in high school and higher education. Now, they’re turning up
in the hands of elementary school students as well, with one recent study
finding that children in the U.S. get their first cellphones at about age 10.
That has districts scrambling to devise rules to govern their use.
At some schools, phones can only be used for
emergencies. Other districts still ban cellphones in primary schools, with an
option for families to seek a waiver if their child needs to have a phone with
them at school.
Some educators and parents are concerned about the
impact phones could have on the culture of elementary school, including the
fact that they might exacerbate divisions between haves and have-nots. There
are also issues about access, such as using a district’s network vs. a private
provider that might not be set up to filter inappropriate content. The presence
of phones in the classroom also adds to teachers’ responsibilities.
“I don’t want to spend my time monitoring inappropriate
cellphone usage when I could be using that time for instruction,” an elementary
school teacher in Silver Spring, MD, told The Washington Post.
