Mobile phones: safety device or distraction?

Technologists feel new policy management capabilities can serve both to provide parents with a better sense of security for their school-age children and to alleviate concerns from educators about distraction and deception.

If cheating and attention spans were all educators and parents had to worry about during the school day, policy-based controls on mobile phones for kids would be a slam-dunk. Logic tells us that parents — who bought phones based on their capability to control when and how much their kids would use their phones — would surely take advantage of those capabilities and ensure their kids didn't spend their school day sending instant messages and worse to their friends.

But killing sprees are another matter. Still, although some schools consider lifting bans that keep students' cell phones in their lockers, and parents urge the same in response to recent shooting inside schools, some security experts dispute the logic.

Policy-based mobile phone features such as those enabled by Telcordia and offered by Disney Mobile provide parents with a lot of control over usage, especially time-of-day usage. Telcordia's platform for real-time charging supports calendar and screening functions that are available to parents through a mobile provider's Web site, in this case Disney Mobile — the only wireless operator now offering this family-friendly call control option.

The platform allows parents to restrict whom their child can call, what type of communication they can use and when they can use it.

“There is certainly an opportunity for a win-win for both educators, who want to provide an environment where kids can concentrate and focus on the right thing at the right time, as well as the parents' ability to have safety measures,” said Cathy McMahon, executive director of product management for hosted solutions at Telcordia.

These features are built into Telcordia's platform and don't need to be built for operators that want to use these types of features. Although McMahon said several of its mobile virtual network operators customers — some of which are not yet publicly announced — have deployed the necessary platform, Disney Mobile said it is the only mobile service provider with this Parental Control features live today.

“Disney Mobile was developed as a family wireless service,” said Paul Borselli, director of acquisition marketing for Disney Mobile. “We built Family Center features that allow parents a great deal of information on when, where and how kids are using their cell phones. This goes to address concerns about kids using their cell phones to text message during class.”

But does it address deeper concerns they have about safety?

As a parent, McMahon believes school administrators might reconsider allowing kids to keep their cell phones with them. “When you look at the things that have happened in schools lately, keeping their phones in lockers is not very effective from a safety standpoint,” she said.

Disney Mobile has had discussions with the National Parent Teacher's Association about these new features. Borselli said the group is very interested in the features but that the talks are just informative, as the group does not recommend companies or their products.

“The PTA's mission is to help parents be better parents and supporters of the educational system,” Borselli said. “They are interested in Disney Mobile because we bring a unique solution to the discussion. We are the only mobile phone company that gives parents the control they need, in school and out.”

However, Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, said neither parental controls nor other policy-based features are the answer when it comes to serious security circumstances.

He said cell phones during emergency situations are best left to adult school crisis team members and that school officials also should plan for how to contact parents in an effective and timely manner during a crisis.

“The role of students in an emergency, however, is to remain calm and quiet, to listen attentively and to follow the directions of well-trained, highly alert adult school staff members,” Trump said. “I do not believe that during a crisis, 13-year-olds should be distracted on the cell phone, speculating with family members and others about what they believe is going on, when they are supposed to be calm, quiet and listening for instructions from well-trained adult school staff that could save their lives.”

Time will tell when Disney starts getting its message to the public about their control feature, whether parents will put more pressure on school administrators to allows their children to carry phones or whether they will leave security in the hands of the experts.

SCHOOL SAFETY RULES

Saying America does not need more institutes, think tanks, research centers or “paralysis-by-analysis” studies of school safety, the National School Safety and Security Services made the following federal and state recommendations:

FEDERAL

• Congress should create a mandatory K-12 school crime reporting and tracking law.

• Take emergency action to revamp the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities state grant program … move responsibility for school security, policing and emergency planning from the U.S. Department of Education to the U.S. Department of Justice.

• Restore funding to the Emergency Response and Crisis Management program and significantly expand K-12 school emergency preparedness funding and resources.

• Restore funding to the COPS in Schools program in the U.S. DOJ and expand resources for local and regional training for school resource officers and school administrators focused on school violence prevention.

• Create legislation to allow K-12 schools to apply for funding from the Department of Homeland Security for enhanced security and emergency preparedness for protecting against potential terrorist attacks upon schools and school buses.

STATE LEVEL

• Examine state reporting requirements for school discipline and crime incidents.

• Enact legislation requiring schools to conduct at least three mandatory lockdown drills over the course of each school year.

• Restore funding cuts to drug and violence prevention, professional development training, school security and school emergency planning.

• Remove election polling places from K-12 schools.

• Include K-12 education and safety officials in state-level homeland security planning.

ONLINE

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