February 13, 2005
Student cellphones eyed as resource
An interesting side of effect of students having cell phones is pointed out in this article from The Boston Globe, where the principal of a high school describes how parents on the outside can be informed of a situation on campus, before the teachers are even aware of it. And how the students cell phones could help out school administrators in times of crisis - for instance, when landline phones lines are bogged down by concerned parents.
"It happened at Chelmsford High School last Monday, when parents clogged the phone lines inquiring about a security lockdown, resulting from a report of a suspicious man in the building. By midweek, officials had determined that the man was an authorized maintenance worker".
With cellphones so prevalent, the school district's technology guru, Bruce Forster, is looking for ways to make cellphones a resource during crises instead of a security breach.
"With a high school of 1,800 kids," he said, ''you can safely assume that there's 1,000 phones in this school at any given time. They're so cheap and parents find them reassuring. . . . Assuming there's 1,000 phones, you have a thousand dial tones. . . . That's a huge resource."
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