According to the National School Safety and Security Offices (NSSSO), cell phones have
been an increasingly negative disruption in schools: “We have opposed policies allowing
or encouraging students to have cell phones and pagers in school. On a day-to-day basis, they are disruptive to the educational environment. This also has been the general
position of many school districts over the years
Adding to this, the NSSSO argues that allowing cell phones for safety reasons is inaccurate.
As they explain, “Changing policies under the guise of cell phones being a
crisis tool for student safety is, in our opinion, a knee-
jerk reaction and is not ‘the answer’ to school crisis preparedness that some may believe it to be.”
In fact, oftentimes school and security officials report that students falsely call in bomb threats or reports of threats on their cell phones as an over-reaction or as a prank; in such cases, these cell phones can force the entire evacuation of a school, while also making it nearly impossible for security teams to try and figure out where the call was placed, and which student(s) made the call