Can you hear me now? Sometimes cell phones are a necessity

There's nothing more annoying and disruptive than a cell phone ringing during the middle of class.

Students whose phones cause a disturbance should definitely be punished. But making cell phone possession in Nevada schools illegal for students is taking the issue a step too far.

As of now, Nevada Revised Statute states "it is unlawful for a pupil in kindergarten or grades 1 to 12, inclusive, while on school grounds, to carry or possess a beeper, portable telephone or any other similar electronic device designed to page or contact a person."

I understand that there are many reasons this law was originally enacted by the state legislature, but society has changed greatly since then.

Cell phones and pagers may once have been considered drug dealers' toys, but cell phones are commonplace these days, and I don't think I've even seen a pager since the 1990s.

I don't have any formal statistics concerning the number of teenagers who own cell phones and bring them to school, but I know that nine out of 10 of my friends have a phone for various reasons and many carry them to school. Believe it or not, sometimes a phone is actually necessary at school and school functions.

If parents need to leave a message for their student, they can eliminate the middleman of the school office by leaving a message on their child's cell phone -- which would be politely on "silent."

Also, since parents can no longer pick up their students from away athletic events (another issue altogether), athletes must call home after the bus returns to school to have their parents pick them up. How can they do this if they cannot even bring a cell phone with them?

Finally, if disaster were to strike at a Nevada school, students would need to use cell phones to call police and parents.

I have a few ideas that would greatly improve the law.

My proposal would not do away with the statute completely, but it would call for many revisions. First, I would amend the statute to allow school boards to establish rules and punishments regarding cell phones rather than the state.

These rules would be:

-- As long as the phone was out of plain sight and not causing a disruption, the student would not be punished. As the law stands right now, if a school official in a particularly nasty mood saw a cell phone in a purse, he could potentially confiscate it and punish the student. Therefore, my revision to the law would call for confiscation and punishments only if the phone rang during class or was blatantly in sight, such as on a belt clip.

-- Students would be prohibited from using a cell phone on school grounds only during the school day. The law now states that a student can't have a cell phone on school grounds, ever. In my proposal, Carson High School students could use their phones at any time before 7 a.m. and after 1:55 p.m. Call me crazy, but I believe that using a cell phone to call home for a ride after school hours should not be an illegal act.

To sum up, students are not using cell phones to engage in illegal activities. They just want to get a ride home. Is it really necessary make them jump through hoops to get there?

Jessica Smallman is a senior at Carson High School. She is writing a regular column for the Nevada Appeal as her senior project.