Broward School Board votes to restrict cellphones, ban headphones in class

Broward students, prepare to put your phones away!⁠
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The Broward County School Board voted unanimously Tuesday to restrict students from using cellphones in class in an effort to keep them focused in the classroom–and off social media.⁠
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The changes go into effect right away when school starts on Aug. 12 and will be enforced from the start of the school day until the end, including during lunch. ⁠
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The new move also completely bans headphones, including AirPods. ⁠
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[Ironmom-momsolo]

Kids in schools survived emergencies for over a century without cell phones. If there’s an emergency, the teachers have phones.

[HP-drsh]

About time. During an emergency, the family can call the school like they have before the cell phone use.😂

[madden]

Banning headphones is kind of a deal breaker since how will this affect students with special needs? Will they need to put it on their IEP, or will schools say no and close that "loophole" since students with Autism need headphones to block out the noises due to sensitive hearing.

Take it from a student that graduated back in 2019 and was in a behavioral/special school, they tried to tell me to not use my laptop when at lunch and they failed when it was placed in my IEP which states that "I can use my laptop and headphones during lunch." This begs the question on how this will play out with a student with an IEP. Will schools deny the request for headphones, cell phones, or laptops just to follow a policy by the school board or not? This now makes IEP's a new loophole to exploit.

[jbarkley]

They won’t be able to ban phones completely But they can try.

[ericacsabon]

Kids are adaptive and will have their phones somewhere. Or end up putting them in their lockers and remoting in with some other device, who knows what these kids will come up with.

[KF_]

I guess I will be a quiet kid during the school

[dougsimmon]

It's about damn time . We got along just fine, up until electronics . If we had an emergency we called police, fire, em's or anybody else we needed, and it was on that thing called a landlines . People have gotten soft !!!