To the principal:

I believe that the best cell phone policy is to allow students to have phone in school and allow them to use them during lunch periods and other free periods, so long as the phone are turned off during class time. Cell phones have become a near irreplaceable part of teens' lives today. The ability to be able to contact people at any place and moment in time is extremely important, to the point of being vital. For example, in case of an emergency, students would be able to contact their parents and the other people they would need to inform. Without this luxury- no, necessity- lives could be endangered. Moreover, students would be happier during school because they would be allowed to use their cell phones- at the right time, of course. Thus, students would have a more positive attitude during class, would work harder, and obtain better grades.

Now, i understand why cell phones are generally not accepted in classrooms. cell phones can be distracting in class; you can talk, text message, and IM friends; you can play games or use the internet. With all of the things you can do with that one machine, it's no wonder that cell phones are deemed a distraction in classrooms. However, if cell phones were permitted to be used during lunch periods and other free periods, I assure you that students' cell phones would not be a distraction during class time any longer. If cell phones were allowed to be used in class, the temptation to use them in class would no longer exist. The reason for that is people always want what they can't have. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain says that in order to make something desirable to someone, you must make it difficult to obtain. Since it would not be difficult to use cell phones, there would not be a need to have them banned in class- and banning cell phones in class would cause cell phone usage to go up.

I hope that you consider changing the school's cell phone policy to be more lenient about cell phone usage, which would in turn give the school a more student-friendly environment.