Cell Phones on Campus Advocated

Hannah Yi sometimes stashes hers in a pocket. Gina Murry daringly carries hers in her hand, crouching behind hallway pillars to use it. Sarah Santos hides hers in a bag or backpack, afraid of teachers who would confiscate it.

Escaping detection is an everyday game for these lawbreakers at James Monroe High School in the San Fernando Valley--and students like them across the country.

Their contraband is not drugs or weapons but cell phones and pagers, illegal since a fear of campus drug-dealing led most states to ban them in the mid-1980s.

Now, a more recent wave of security concerns--from the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado to this month’s terrorist attacks--is forcing a reappraisal of those laws. In the last year, Maryland and Kentucky have repealed their bans on campus cell phones and pagers. And Illinois is considering a repeal.

California doesn’t have a bill in the pipeline. But at Monroe High, part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the principal and some of his cell phone-toting students are now planning a public campaign to persuade the state Legislature to enact one.

“I’m no lawyer, but I don’t see the point in having laws that make good kids into criminals,” said Monroe Principal Gregory J. Vallone. “Kids have these phones anyway. And with the news we’ve had, parents are naturally going to want to be in contact.”

Vallone, like most educators, supported the bans when they were enacted more than a decade ago. Then, pagers and cell phones were expensive and rare. In a survey of police in 81 school districts in 1986, 51 said beepers or phones were being used by students for drug sales.

“We were trying to stop the drug dealers,” said Illinois Rep. Mary Flowers, who led the effort to pass her state’s ban in 1985. “The only kids who could afford them were selling dope. It was in the context of the ‘Just Say No’ campaign. That was all we were trying to do.”

In California, the Assn. of Supervisors of Child Welfare and Attendance, citing rising crime in schools, led the push for a law. The California Teachers Assn. joined in, saying cell phones were disruptive.

The bill was approved in 1988 without opposition. The law prohibits the possession or use of any “electronic signaling devices by pupils” at any time on school campuses or during related functions, such as proms or games. The law exempts only students who “require such devices for health-related reasons.” Such medical waivers are rare.

It’s not clear that the law ever was aggressively enforced. School districts don’t keep statistics on expulsions for cell phone use. Confiscation is the official policy of most California districts, with parents required to retrieve the devices.

And the ban--not unlike laws against underage drinking--has been undermined by the easy availability of the prohibited product. On college campuses, cell phones are standard. Even the Naval Academy lets its upperclassmen carry them.

“As long as it’s not a disruptive type of thing, most schools pretty much let it go,” said Bill Ybarra, director of administrative projects for the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

That attitude sharpened after the shootings at Columbine High in April 1999. Students and teachers there used cell phones to contact the authorities. Colorado was among the minority of states to have no ban.

Around the country, some parents and school leaders--long content to ignore the bans--began to argue that cell phones might actually be useful to schools.

Under public pressure, a handful of state legislatures moved to reconsider their bans. Maryland had one of the toughest laws--cell phone-toting students could get jail time--but the Legislature voted for repeal earlier this year.

“It was parents who came to me and said children need to have cell phones,” said state Delegate Jean Cryor, who backed the repeal.

Cryor expects that repeal efforts in other states “will roll right through” since the terrorist attacks, during which airplane passengers and World Trade Center tenants managed to pass last words to their families by cell phone.

“We know now these are not safe times,” she said. “Our safety net is gone, and the security of a cell phone can help restore it.”

At Monroe High, the principal hopes to interest legislators in a similar repeal for California. Vallone thinks the law should permit schools to make their own policies. He suggests that students be permitted to have cell phones but must turn them off during class.

In recent months, Vallone has sent material to Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks); a Hertzberg aide said staffers hadn’t yet reviewed the papers. Vallone also encouraged students to survey their classes to find out who carries the phones.

One recent spot poll of an honors English class found that 14 of the 19 students were carrying cell phones or pagers in their backpacks. Most keep them off during school to avoid detection.

Mike Murry, whose daughter Gina stays after school for extra help with her pre-calculus class, pages his daughter to arrange their schedules.

“I need her to be able to call me during the day,” said Murry, whose work schedule is irregular and keeps him on the move. “I think what the principal is doing is just recognizing this reality: Parents have to be in touch with their kids.”

Still, some staffers disagree with Vallone’s mission. “Anything that distracts from the business of learning is a negative,” said Stephen Sloan, a Monroe administrator.

The principal said he appreciates the objections but has gone forward nonetheless with what amounts to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy: As long as he and his staff don’t actually see the phones, students can use them as they wish.

The result of this approach is a game of hide-and-seek that both principal and students would like to see end. Pritika Kumar, 16, clashed with a teacher who took her pager; the teacher, she said, had a cell phone on her own hip.

Classmate Hannah Yi said she is frustrated that her pager could get her in trouble. “I didn’t want it,” she said. “My parents made me get it. If my dad pages me and I don’t respond quickly, he gets worried.”