Cell Phone Ban Still An Issue As School Starts
BY RICHARD GENTILVISO

As school began yesterday for 12.1 million public school students, the system-wide ban on cell phones remains intact. But a lawsuit filed over the summer by the Chancellor's own Parent Advisory Council against the Department of Education and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is seeking to change that.

According to Chancellor's Regulation a- 412, instituted in 1988 under then Schools Chancellor Richard Green, beepers and other "communication devices" were banned because of drug dealing in schools.

But most schools did not enforce that order until late April of this year, when school officials began confiscating cell phones after random X-ray scans were conducted on students entering selected schools. About 3,233 cell phones in 20 schools were taken. They could be returned only to parents coming in to school.

Filed in Manhattan on July 14, the lawsuit contends the ban is illegal and unconstitutional, risking student safety by preventing contact with parents before and after school. The Parents Advisory Council, which consists of 44 elected Parent Association leaders from all city school districts, says many students travel long distances to school and many are responsible for younger brothers and sisters.

"In the times we're living in, this is completely a safety issue for the overwhelming number of families," said Tim Johnson, chairperson of the Parent Advisory Council in a July 13 New York Times report.

The cell phone policy in New York City is one of the most severe in the country and has been consistently backed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Commenting on the lawsuit in a July 14-16 article in the New York Sun, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, Keith Kalb, said, "We can't comment on specifics of the lawsuit, but we stand by our policy."

The random, unannounced checking of students was supposed to help stop the flow of weapons and other contraband in targeted schools, but instead touched off a firestorm of controversy over cell phones. Thirty-eight weapons and one heavy piece of iron were reported confiscated last year, along with 250 iPods and 783 other "disruptive electronic devices", such as Game Boys and Walkmen, Kalb said in the July 13 Times report.

"It is our experience that when cell phones are brought into schools, they are used and disrupt the school's learning environment. There is no constitutional right to disrupt a student's education," Kalb said in the Sun report.

City Councilmember Lewis A. Fidler disagrees and has said he will introduce legislation to allow students to carry cell phones to school. "One of the mayor's good qualities is that he backs up his agencies," Fidler said in a May 15 New York Times report. "But DOE [the city Department of Education] has taken a position that is ill advised and a little out of touch."

Klein is also expected soon to approve proposed changes to the DOE discipline code for students. The proposal, introduced at an August 9 public meeting at DOE headquarters, would subject students who make threats of violence, harm or injury on the Internet to punishment ranging from a parent conference to as much as 10 days' suspension.

Arthur N. Eisenberg, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that trying to regulate students' online speech by the DOE was unconstitutional, according to a report in the August 10 New York Times.