Cell Phone Ban in NYC Schools Being Defied, Mayor de Blasio Promises Coming Policy Change [Video]

Cell phones are banned for students in New York City public schools. But mayor Bill de Blasio has said that he would like to end cell phone prohibition. Now, the New York Daily News is reporting that there are seven schools that are defying the ban.

The cell phone ban was started by former mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2006. According to CBS News, Bloomberg and then chancellor of the NYC school system, Joel Klein, insisted that the phones were a distraction for students, and that they were used to cheat, take inappropriate photos, and arrange gang meetings, in addition to being frequently stolen. In 2012, the Inquisitr reported on a cheating scandal in New York that involved cell phones, giving some credence to Bloomberg’s claim.

Many city schools are currently following an “out of sight, out of mind” policy for cell phones — if the phone can’t be seen or heard, then it’s not an issue. But in schools where students have to enter the building through metal detectors, the ban continues to be enforced because the detectors will pick up the phones.

In the true spirit of capitalism, store owners near the schools started allowing students to keep their phones in the store for a charge that was typically around $1 a day. There are also cell phone “vans” that allow students to store their devices while in school. But when a store manager near the Martin Luther King, Jr. Educational Complex reportedly raised his rate from $1 to $5 a day, the school said “enough is enough.”

The schools in the MLK complex started allowing students to store their phones inside the school last Monday. The Daily News says that so far both students and parents are delighted with the new policy. Brea Bethea, a 16-year-old junior at the High School For Law, Advocacy, and Community, says that the money she is saving on cell phone storage now allows her to afford to buy breakfast.

“Now I can buy breakfast in the morning. Do you know how much money they’d take from us to keep our phones in bodegas, five days a week?”

Naysayers may argue that if the choice is between having a cell phone and buying breakfast, breakfast should be the top priority. But WABC says that Sam Pirozzolo, of the city parents’ union, explained the importance of teens having access to cell phones in a statement.

“Cell phones help to keep our children safer as they travel to and from school. Surely, if Mayor de Blasio can stop having people arrested for carrying marijuana, he can stop our schools from taking cell phones from children.”

Mayor de Blasio has admitted that his own son carries a cell phone with him to Brooklyn Technical High School, where he attends school. Overturning the ban was one of the things that de Blasio promised during his campaign. There were other issues in the city’s school system that have taken priority over rescinding the cell phone ban, but, according to the Huffington Post, de Blasio says the ban will end soon. City school officials are working on a cell phone policy that will be similar to ones already in place in other large city school districts, such as Los Angeles and Chicago.

[Photo credit Steve Remich/WSJ]