The Chronicles Of Nay

Good Evening! How are you? I hope that all of you are doing well! So I have a story about a situation that happened last week… and I want to know what you think:

So let me start with on my campus we have a no cell phone policy. The students are not supposed to have their cell phones on at all.  Well on Friday my student, we shall call him John, comes up to me and says “Ms Sr Chief is calling me can I answer my phone?” I said “no your phone isn’t even supposed to…” before I could finish my sentence he told me “no Ms he’s calling because I had an issue with some…” Then I cut him off. I told him “I am sure that Sr Chief knows you are in class and I am sure he will understand that you are in class and you are not supposed to have your phone on. Put it away and work on your science activity.” He walked away a little frustrated. I went back to doing what I was doing then the next time I glanced over at him he was texting… the little turkey had his phone under the table and he was texting like I couldn’t tell what he was doing! Please child! I can do that too! And I am better at it than you! I do miss the old school phones that had the actual buttons (you know not touch screen!) man I used to be a fast texter on those. Anyway, I say “John! Bring me your phone” then the little turkey tells me “no Ms its ok.. I am texting my mom” I was like “no no no sir… I didn’t ask who you were texting or why I said bring me your phone!” he brings it over and I put it on my podium actually on top of my phone.  Then we move on. At the end of class I was helping a couple young men clean up a mess they made in class and John asks me if he can have his phone back. I told him no. That his mom would have to come get it from the office. (That is the policy if it is taken up). So I continue helping the students clean up. The next period is lunch so I go out in to the hall I tell the kids to bring their stuff in and let’s go to lunch we had another incident and I ended up walking another teachers kids down to lunch also. So I get down stairs I hang out down stairs most of lunch. I go back upstairs to my room and get my cell phone off of my podium where I left my phone and John’s and freeze… wait… where is John’s phone? My phone is here… I start looking around like did I put it somewhere else. I was like nope… that is for sure where I left it. By now my students are coming back from lunch and I have to teach. At this point 2 things are running through my mine 1) concern that I may have lost this phone… like it was in my possession and not its missing… then in like 3 seconds I go to 2) anger… I bet this little turkey took the phone back… 3) gratitude that he only took his phone and not mine too… then… 4) back to anger that this kid just does whatever he wants! After class I go to try to find this kid and I discover he left early. So I was about 91.7% sure that this kid took the phone and it wasn’t another kid I called mom. I called and I told her “I am so sorry to bother you, I just wanted to let you know that I took up Johns phone today because he was in it during class. And at some point when his phone was in my possession it went missing. I noticed he received an early dismissal and I was just wondering if you could ask him if he got his phone back. If he ended up taking it back. If he doesn’t have it than we will have some other steps to follow here at school before the students leave for the weekend” she said she would talk to him and she would call me back I was like yeah cool. So about 20 minutes later this lady calls me back… She said “Ma’am John does have his phone and he told me that he was only on his phone because Sr Chief was calling him.” Then she proceeded to try to justify why he was on his phone in class. I told her “Ma’am I was just making sure that he was the one that took the phone off my podium where I left it… I will talk to him about it on Monday.” She continued to try to justify and again I said “I will talk to him on Monday. I just wanted to make sure he had the phone and not one of the other students!” I thanked her for calling me back and told her to have a good weekend.

Now the thought question: Parents If you had received my phone call about your student  how would you have handled it?