Dear TEACHER_NAME,

I have been informed that you are thinking about adjusting the school polices for cell phones. Well, I must confess, I do not have a cell phone, so I may not be the best person to ask in this issue. However, I feel you should be a bit less lenient with cell phone use in school, and here's why.

First up, the most obvious reason: they are a distraction. How can any student concentrate on school if they hear a constant buzzing noise, or if they hear their obnoxious ring tone going off every few minutes? You may wonder why this would be a problem in the classroom if students are only aloud to use them in the hallways or in between classes, but for convenience purposes, to save a trip the locker every time we would want to use it, we'd keep it in our pockets. If we "accidentally" leave them on, they'd disrupt the class. Plus, if one class is working while another class is changing classes, I'd bet RELATIVE_NAME talking loudly to his girlfriend in California is a bit more interesting than Bohr models, so that would naturally throw the class off a bit.

Second of all, cell phones can really cause stress. My elder brother has a cell phone, and I can tell without even asking him that he just received a text that had bad news. In the class room, that can cause a bit of trouble. For sake of example, let's say RELATIVE_NAME just got a break-up text. Yep, she sure is going to focus on the Battle of Trenton in history for sure next class!

Lastly, let's say RELATIVE_NAME's family is really struggling money-wise right now. They can't afford the cheapest pay phone in the book right now, so naturally, he can't have one. Meanwhile, RELATIVE_NAME has the latest and greatest Droid on the planet, and she's always showing it off. ...What's this? Did she leave her locker open just a little? RELATIVE_NAME is really tempted (really, really tempted) to just reach in there and...

Which brings me to my final reason: if cell phones are constantly receiving attention in school, therefore, encouraging crime. After all, I know a big, shiny Droid is pretty hard to pass up, no matter what the means of getting it.

So, for these reasons, I believe cell phones should be banned from school.

-STUDENT_NAME