Many schools have policies restricting student phone use only during instructional time. That is very difficult to enforce and puts the responsibility for enforcement on the teacher. It sets up an unhealthy dynamic: There’s the cool teacher who lets you use your phone and the mean teacher who won’t. Students also often get around these policies by going to the bathroom for extended periods and using their phones there. Plus, when students have access to their phones during lunch and breaks, they use their phones instead of talking to each other. Some parents are concerned about reaching their kids during emergencies – in particular, they often mention school shootings. School safety experts agree that students are actually safer without their phones in these situations: Their phones distract them from instructions on what to do and where to go; noises from phones can alert shooters to where people are hiding; student phone use ties up cell bandwidth making it difficult for police and first responders to communicate; if students contact their parents, parents will rush to the school, creating traffic that keeps police and ambulances from reaching the school.