Banning Smart Phones In The Westminster School District

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Banning Smartphones in Schools in the Westminster School District

The Westminster School District has been around for over 70 years, providing over 15 schools in the District. The district is in the center of the city of Westminster, which has gone through becoming a thriving and multicultural city since the 1900’s. The test scores of Westminster District are remarkable measured above 90 percent from grades 2-11 (See Figure 1). But as time goes on, we are faced with new generations and technology. The schools have been updated with the most up to date technology to better educate the students in school. However, occasionally the technology that we are given can be a distraction rather than a form to better our education. Around 70 percent
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One reason, students can use their cell phones to cheat in class. Kids have always discovered ways to cheat, but with smartphones, they are more powerful than ever. Kids can text their friends the answers during tests, using notes and information on their phones, and download the answers from the Internet. With the world of technology being so distant, difficult to track, and mostly undistinguished, kids are less likely to see the punishment of their online action, especially when they know they will not get caught. According to National News survey, more than a third of kids with a cell phone of 35 percent admitted using their smartphone at least once to cheat during a test while the other percentage of 52 percent claimed they have used the Internet to …show more content…
This may seem very disrespectful to the teachers because teachers are taking their time of the day to teach these students who would check their social media newsfeed or text their friends during class rather than be engaged with teacher’s lesson plans. Also, this can be distracting for the teachers as well. With teachers having to persistently monitor the classroom for students doing what in the classroom, teachers are being sidetracked and losing valuable time to teach. Parents might argue that their kids should have a smartphone to contact them when there is an emergency. Though it may seem safe for kids to have a cell phone to reach their parents for emergencies, this is another distraction with waddling through non-emergency issues. Schools have secretaries to facilitate emergency calls, so the parents can get in reach of the school rather than distract their kids while in class.
Furthermore, there has been proof that banning smartphones can improve students grades. For example, research from the London School of Economics uncovered that with the policy of banning smartphones in school has shown an improvement in overall test scores (See Figure 2). The study from banning cellphone resulted in a 14.23 percent improvement in test scores for low achieving students, and a 6.41 percent improvement in overall in the schools with the policy of cell phone ban. The benefit was equivalent to an addition hour of

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