Principle,

I believe that cell phones should be allowed in school at lunch time but if you have them out during class you'll receive the normal punishment. What would be the point of not allowing students to have they're cell phones out during lunch? They are eating and/or talking to friends.

Although, the only true downside to this is if your texting it does not always get to the other persons phone right away, depending on the amount of signal you or they have it could take 5 seconds or it could take 30 minutes. And because of that the students cell phone could ring in the middle of class and end up having them in detention with they're phone taken away.

So as you can see in the first two paragraphs that there is a good thing and a bad thing about allowing students to have there cell phones out during school hours, or at least class room time, and with that being said why can't we also have our cell phones out during school dances, it would not be very different from lunch time and your after school. The only problem i can see by allowing this is if you drop your phone, leave it somewhere, or its been stolen.

These things are not very big things to worry about but some of these things don't really have a complete point to, like the one for school dances in the last paragraph, it doesn't really have a reason why we can not have them out. Truly there has to be a really good explanation for not allowing this.

Now for not allowing them in class I understand, the way I see it is because students will, most likely, most of their time texting or calling friends or family about what they are going to do after school. If this is allowed the this will probably happen, the students will not pay attention, they will not learn, won't get their homework finished, they might get held back a grade, not graduate, not go to college, won't get a very good job (that they actually like to do), from then on their are a few more problems and all because the school allowed cell phones in class, but that doesn't mean that this will happen to everyone some will actually want to pay attention, finish homework on time, and so on. But luckily schools don't allow phones out whenever the student wants to text his/her friend but maybe at lunch or at school dances.

Now throughout this response i have said/typed what I think is, in a way, best for the school and that is to carry out with the no cell phones in school policy. Because the student might lose his/her cell phone or other electronic device.