School districts may have a different policy on the use or presence phones during school. For instance, your school may allow them during certain circumstances, such as during lunch or when you're not working. Other schools may not allow them at all.
Happening in School
This category encompasses activities happening throughout Arizona schools. This may include sporting events, clubs, field trips, in-class activities, talent shows, fundraisers, guest speakers, and other activities occurring in our schools. Write an article about what’s happening in Arizona schools! Disclaimer: Please do not include real names of people or schools in these articles.
Arizona recently passed a new law that requires all high school students and GED candidates to pass a 100 question civic test. This test will become mandatory starting in the 2016-2017 school year and will require a 60% pass rate. The test will come from the civics portion of the Citizenship test and was created in the hope to create more informed citizens with a better understanding of the workings of the government.
Hazing, a ritual that colleges have attempted to extinguish for years, has found its way into the high school system. This week Hamilton High School, a school located in Chandler, Arizona, is at the forefront of the conversation. Six football players were arrested, five of which are teenagers, for crimes that started with hazing but lead to charges that also include sexual assault and kidnapping. Hazing originated as a right of passage to "teach newcomers respect for [group] policies, rules and leaders" but has been known to turn from mildly degrading to dangerous and even deadly. The first recorded death from hazing happened at Cornell University in 1873 and by 1912 death by hazing had become a common headline in newspapers. Since that time school administrators and legislatures have attempted to end hazing through hazing prevention laws like A.R.S. § 15-2301. Learn more about hazing in the school offenses section of this site.
Five 9th graders are getting international notoriety for their science experiment. What started as a school project rocketed them into the spotlight for what they discovered. The girls noticed that having their cell phones by their head as they slept caused them to have less concentration at school and difficulty sleeping so they decided to test the theory for their biology class. They took trays of cress seeds and placed them in a room both with and without Wi-Fi routers, routers use the same type of waves as cell phones, and gave them the same amount of water and sunlight; the results of what happened over the next 12 days are nothing but astounding. The seeds that had been placed with the router not only failed to grow but some were even mutated or dead. The seeds that were not subjected to the router grew strong and healthy. Scientist have been impressed with the girls precision in the experiment and are now setting up their own similar experiments to further test the results.
BULLYING. A word that invokes images of nerds and jocks and the countless funny TV and movie encounters, is back in the news today after an 8 year old boy is found dead in his home. Gabriel Taye is believed to have committed suicide after a "bullying" instance that left him laying unconscious on a bathroom floor for six minutes while his classmates poked at him. The problem with the use of the word bullying is the connotation, the idea or feeling that the word invokes. When we hear it, it brings up images of small school yard skirmishes that have no real consequence. The reality is much different. Bullying is used to describe crimes such as harassment, theft, assault, battery, manslaughter and even murder. We cannot allow the people perpetrating these acts to diminish the severity of the grief they inflict and hide their crimes behind a belittled label. Assault is assault, and it should be called and treated like it no matter where it is done. The proper reaction just might save a life. Learn more about the laws that surround bullying and the crimes that it entails here.