High-tech annoyances

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: July 16, 2008

No one should be surprised Pittsylvania County’s principals want to kick students’ cell phones off campus.

The principals have learned what the kids already know: Text messages can be sent without even looking at the phone, giving students the ability to send and receive messages when it looks like they’re simply reading, studying or taking a test.

Given a chance, some young people, like some adults, would constantly communicate with their friends on the phone — regardless of where they were.

Today’s cell phones are used by tech-savvy teens for a lot more than just receiving an emergency call from their family or to tell mom the bus left school without them.

In the days when large, bulky cell phones were kept in bags that were stored in cars, they may have been used solely in emergencies. But that’s not how they’re used today.

Pittsylvania County Schools’ current policy was adopted less than a year ago. If the principals want it changed, it’s a good bet they know it’s not working.

“The concern of principals is to try to manage cell phone use in the high schools and middle school,” Superintendent James McDaniel said.

Those who rode to school in a mule-drawn cart can only guess why kids today can’t call their parents from the school office — or why those same parents can’t call the school office in an emergency. If the school’s office can relay emergency messages, why does a teen even need — as opposed to want or crave or desire — a cell phone at school?

Danville Public Schools allows its middle and high school students to carry their cell phones with them during the day, but the phones cannot be turned on or used either on campus or on the school bus.

That’s the policy the county should consider.

Pittsylvania County Schools should listen to its principals and restrict student cell phone use on campus. If the current policy couldn’t last a year, it’s obvious the kids know something the adults have yet to figure out.