> schools ended up adopting an "out of sight, out of mind" policy around phones

This was how it worked in my schools two decades ago. As long as you didn't use your phone there was no problem, but otherwise it was the teacher's discretion on how to handle it (within limits). Usually that meant confiscation until the end of that class, on rare occasion they'd allow calls/texts as long as it was shared with the class (to embarrass them into not doing it again).

> It will be interesting to see if the Dutch can overcome either (or both) of these problems.

Having recently toured about 20 secondary schools in the Netherlands I can say that most of them had a system for this. In each classroom, near the door, was a kind of cloth rack with 30 pouches where the kids would leave their phones as they entered.

"If you have a phone in class then _you_ leave the class."

Why is the school treating these children like clients? They aren't. If they can conform to the rules, they can come, if they can't, they don't. You don't have a natural right to be in the classroom.

I’m pretty sure that, as a matter of law, school attendance is compulsory in most western countries. Whether or not students are “clients” is immaterial; the school has an obligation to teach them, and the students are compelled to attend.

This is why I think we need to change the way we view students and education generally and reintroduce corporal punishments, such as caning.

That's what "in school suspension" is for.

I think the one place that I used my phone the most in high school was in suspension!

(More broadly: I don't think it's remotely practical to remove students from classrooms like this. To a first approximation, every single student in school has a smartphone.)

"in school suspension" is largely a US only thing

That's incredibly short sighted and disappointing. There is no place for cellphones in school. They're incredibly disruptive to classes and learning.

Banning cellphones in schools is very practical. You put them into the pouches they use at concerts. Pouches are opened at the end of the day.

If parents need to reach their kids they can do so easily. Call the school and ask for the kid.

Again: the problem was enforcement. It turns out that making 1000+ teenagers put their phones into bags (and ensuring that they don’t open them) is not trivial.

The problem with contact is when the student leaves the school: the phone was typically confiscated for multiple days, meaning that students would be left without their phones when they left the grounds. Many parents give their children phones so they can reach them if they’re lost or similar.

Notably, the city tore up all of the payphones around the same time.

Edit: as a piece of trivia: prior to the end of the ban, there was an entire thriving industry of phone escrow vans parked outside of schools[1].

[1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/10/04/phone-valet/1...

Why not confiscate the phones for only the length of the school day and give them back when the student leaves? If you need a harsher punishment as escalation, use something unrelated to the phone like a detention or suspension.

At my son's school they have to put their phones in the 'phone hotel' at the beginning of the school day and pick them up at the end. The kids just bring two phones and put a junk one in the hotel. If they were to enforce it with detention or suspension, 75% of the student body would permanently be on detention/suspension.

They can’t even keep phones out of prisons never mind schools.

American schools are prison like enough as it is.

School has breaks too. What are you doing if a teacher is absent or you have something like a 3h lunch break?

Growing up you were simply not allowed to actively use your phone during class, outrightly banning phones from school makes no sense. We'd also use them for some class activity at least once a week.

> actual confiscations led to larger concerns (e.g., students who were unable to contact their caretakers after school).

Would it have been possible to grant access to a regular old school phone near the principal office or secretary office for outside calls ?

Even when I was in high school 20 years ago, we longer had a normal phone at school. I was the only odd one out, trying to call home using a perpetually broken phone booth while all my classmates had mobile phones.

I have been thinking and... well... what about a smartphone in the principal's office :] ? Or a VOIP soft (with pre-encoded emergency contact) ?

After all, if the roof fell on the kid and the smartphone is locked how can the teachers or anyone call his parents to inform they are being taken to the hospital ?

To be frank many people don't remember phone numbers these days, and just enter them into their phone-books to use. I know as a kid decades ago it took me a while to learn my home phone number. Sure a refresher index card could be used but that just isn't the norm.

I think it probably makes sense to give up. After all, we fought World War 2 without computers or cell phones, but people were different in those days. Now we take care of people more and prioritize how to stay in touch with caretakers, so we have to allow kids to bring their smartphones into the classroom.

How could actual confiscations possibly lead to larger concerns? Cellphones didn't even exit until I was an adult and I'm still in my 40s. Sheesh. How the hell did anything happen before the year 2005?