Cell phone letters fall on deaf ears

Although the situations of angry parents and students who sent complaints about the City's cell phone ban in schools were varied, their messages were similar: &#8220Our children have the right to have immediate access to their parents,” one parent wrote.
Clutching 100 of the emails from parents and students sent to her through the email &#8220hotline” she had set up - schoolcellphoneban@pubadvocate.nyc.gov - Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum recently delivered the letters to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office, and called on Bloomberg and the Department of Education (DOE) to end the ban.
&#8220I've heard from countless parents who rely on cell phones to stay in touch with their children,” Gotbaum said. &#8220I've received emails from parents whose children were lost, mugged, or injured, and were only able to receive assistance by using their cell phones to call help.”
In one email, a mother asked that her 14-year-old son be allowed to carry his cell phone because &#8220he has some slight neurological difficulties that have the dual effect of making him unaware of his surroundings and unable to speak with strangers. When he finds himself lost, he will not ask an unknown adult for help,” the desperate woman wrote.
&#8220The cell phone is his lifeline. I want to let [him] have a ‘normal' life and travel around the city (with some limitations) like his peers. The only way to do that is with a cell phone,” she wrote in the email.
Another mother wrote that her 13-year-old son was shot with a paintball gun while walking home from school. &#8220He had no way to call me at home to inform me that he was injured. His only resort was to leave the scene of the accident walking home bleeding, hurt, dizzy, disoriented as well as having blurred vision,” she wrote. &#8220The NYPD [New York Police Department] informed me to try and get him a cell phone!”
Gotbaum, as well as parents and students, suggested possible compromises to the ban - such as storing the phones as kids enter schools in a secure location until the school day finishes, or allowing school principals to make the call on whether the phones should be banned.
&#8220Cell phones are for getting to and from school, not for use during school hours,” wrote the parent of an 11-year-old daughter. &#8220I am shocked that our attempts to communicate the importance of this issue [have] fallen on deaf ears.”
So far, Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have refused to drop the ban, and in his most recent comment to the media, Bloomberg said that instead of finding inventive ways to avoid the cell phone ban, students should spend more time studying.