Cell Phone Ban Goes Way Overboard... In An Unconstitutional Manner

School Cellphone Ban Violates Rights of Parents, Lawsuit Says

Carmen Colon, a divorced mother raising three sons in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, considers herself a law-abiding citizen. But New York City’s ban on students carrying cellphones in the schools is one rule she will not abide by, she said yesterday.

Until he graduated last year, her oldest, Devin, 17, traveled more than an hour each way, taking two subway trains from their home in Brooklyn to Washington Irving High School in Manhattan near Union Square.

Her middle son, Andre, 13, also has an hourlong trip on the A and L trains to his public school, the Institute for Collaborative Education, at 15th Street and First Avenue.

Because Ms. Colon works full-time at Keyspan, the Brooklyn gas company, she relies on the older children to take care of the youngest one after school. Devin and Andre use their cellphones to coordinate who will pick up Taylor, who is going into fifth grade at Public School 261 in Brooklyn.

So her sons, she said, will keep taking their cellphones to school.

“If the Department of Education doesn’t like it, they can sue me,” Ms. Colon said.

As a teacher, I understand the issue of cell phones in school. Students use their cell phones for all sorts of purposes that are disruptive to the learning enviornment, including using their cell phones in the halls, in the bathrooms (which makes them late for class), text messaging each other during class, taking embarrassing pictures of fellow students and faculty, as well as CHEATING. So the ban on cell phone use on school property, during regular school activities (as opposed to sports events, rallies, extra-curricular activities, etc.) is understandable, the absolute ban on cell phones is unreasonable and irresponsible... and quite probably unconstitutional.

The parents argue, in papers filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, that the ban is so broad and blunt that it violates their constitutional right as parents to keep their children safe and to raise them in the way they see fit.

The ban violates their due process right to personal liberty under both the state and federal constitutions, they said, because it interferes with the relationship between parents and their children, without a compelling education reason for doing so.

The constitutional claim echoes arguments raised more than a decade ago by parents who sought to overturn a policy by Chancellor Joseph Fernandez of providing condoms to public school students. In 1993, a state appellate court upheld the parents’ right to decide whether their children should receive condoms.

I think the parents have a case and will eventually win the cause. But how much rigmarole will they have to undergo to have reason enter the picture when it comes to public school disciplinary policies and practicies. In my years working in education, I have found that most of the folks making rules for school are asinine jerks and control freaks... with an obvious political agenda that is not educationally sound or focused.

“It is our experience that when cellphones are brought into schools, they are used and disrupt the school’s learning environment,” Mr. Kalb wrote. “There is no constitutional right to disrupt a student’s education.”

While the claims of disruption are valid, mere possession of a phone does not constitute a disruption. It is a pre-emptive strike and creates a chilling effect that interferes with the First Amendment right to affiliate with others, to conduct free speech, and engage in the parent-child relationship.

From the end of April to the end of school in June, police confiscated more than 3,000 cellphones in random searches at schoolhouse doors, and principals confiscated many more on their own.

Since cell phones are not illegal, this process denies the students their Fourth Amendment right to be secure in their persons, papers and possessions. While the schools do have a right to conduct searches for contrband, a cell phone cannot be considered contraband... and indeed in some circumstances can be considered safety equipment for students traveling to and from school.