To be slightly annoyed that DD was left stranded at school

[GuiltyPleasure]

DD is 15. She attends her local school which is about 8 miles from where we live. School is about 2 miles from the town, where there are very infrequent transport links to our village, but in the car it's only about a 20 minute journey. (Need to set context so as not to drip feed). Today DD was with 4 friends at lunchtime, they were all looking at their phones.. See teacher approaching, group put phones away. Teacher sees them & confiscates DD's phone, but no-one else's (DD says this is because teacher knows her because she's in his teaching group, but doesn't know the others, not sure I entirely believe her version of events) & told her to collect from the main office at end of school. 5 minutes before end of lesson another child was given permission to leave early to return a borrowed school tie to the office. DD asks if she can leave early to go to the office as well & told no. DD goes to office at end of school to get phone, knowing she has 10 mins till the school bus leaves. Office staff tell her the phone isn't here it's in x room. DD goes to x room, told to go to y room. Staff in y room tell her to wait a couple of minutes. DD tells them she needs to catch the bus so please could she get her phone back. Buses pick up a couple of minutes walk from main school building. By this time the bus had already left. Staff didn't offer any assistance. There is no other way for her to get home given our/school location. Very distressed DD rings me, so I have to leave work early 40mins away to collect her. I want to be clear I have no issue whatsoever with the phone being confiscated. She broke the rules & faced the consequences of that, but DD told staff on several occasions that she was time limited because she had to catch the school bus & by the time she left they knew she had missed it. AIBU to speak to the school to say I'm unhappy about this? I'm sure the confiscation was in theory the lightest form of punishment, but I'd rather they'd given her a break/lunchtime detention, which is the normal punishment for "minor" infractions of the school rules.?

I agree with all the people who say she should have collected the phone the next day. People did manage to survive before the days of mobile phones. But I don't suppose you could expect a teenager to realise this.

I'm not sure it would be a safe choice to leave a phone over night either though, especially an expensive one?
It could end up stolen and i don't think any of the staff would have wanted to take ownership of it!
My parents would not have been happy if i'd have left a phone at school. ( mind you i only got one in my final year anyway).
Also no, not all kids can walk home or too 'the town'.
I can ( used to be able to ) walk to one of my local towns as it's mostly a straight road, the other, no. Yet i've lived here nearly all my life.
I can't follw/understand directions and i get easily confused, nothing to do with being lazy. I would have been stranded if my school was where the op described.

Why would you/she need to follow directions? She goes to the school and back every day of the week. She wouldnt need to ask directions.

YANBU, she should not have been put in that position. It was very unhelpful and could have led to her attempting to walk home alone etc.

15 is still quite young to navigate making sensible decisions.

She did the right thing by getting in touch with you, and you did the right thing by leaving work to collect her. But suppose her parent had not had access to a car or had not been contactable! What a load of unnecessary fuss when the school must know all kids have phones and they all look at them from time to time!

I've got a mobile phone, I use it a lot, I look at it at work, I even use it for work calls sometimes, where I work a lot of people do that! Being able to work and be in possession of a phone is going to be an essential skill for any future work force, so if school is to get young people to be a good part of the future work force (sometimes feels this is the main aim of it to be honest) then assuming people will suddenly lose their phone is absurd!

Young people have a very intense relationship with friends via phones and may well find the idea of the loss of the phone quite a serious thing, which we as adults do not always understand but still man adults would feel bereft without their phones! Schools will need to understand this if they are really to understand children of today (which I sometimes wonder if they are keen to do!)

many adults...

Other than grumbling about missing her bus to the teachers, did she ever actually go back to the office to tell them and ask for help? You're complaining that they didn't help her, but did she say something to them to ask for help? You say you don't necessarily believe the first part of her story, so what makes you so sure the second part of what she has told you is true?

I'd be very wary of accusing the school of anything before being 100% sure of the facts.

I'm afraid I'd have expected her to walk into town too and wait for you there to pick her up after work if she couldn't get a bus any earlier if this made your journey easier over going to school. But of course I walked 2 miles each way to school every day, uphill both ways and barefoot in the snow.

Yanbu.
If they insist on taking the kids possessions then they should at least give them back on time. I wouldn't have left without my phone either. Why don't the school know where they've put things?
It's helpful you picked her up and I hope she is grateful. Would she have been able to get home any other way?

GuiltyPleasure just reading some comments here! It's very interesting. It's curious some people don't see it as the schools fault, or feel it is your dd's mistake, even though they caused your dd to be late and miss her bus by taking her phone, not letting her collect it 5 minutes early, and then having it in an accessible place!

If 15 year olds are so much like adults, as some seem to suggest, can we imagine how this would fly at work, if as an adult I was not allowed to use my phone at work and due to a similar kerfuffle I was left stranded at work! I'd be pretty pissed off.

Plus this 2 mile walk to town or 8 mile walk to home sounds like where I live, country roads, no pavements, 50 mile speed limits in some places o traffic travels fast, so walking around is just not so easy.

Can I just ask, as someone else did, and I did not see the reply, why was it a problem if it was lunchtime? It may help to clarify whether kids can use their phones in the lunch break, because if they can, then the school was at fault to take the phone away.

I think (in your shoes) I would contact school and just say it had inconvenienced you that the school staff had not been able to return dd's phone in a timely manner, and you know (if it was definitely a rule break for dd to look at her phone on school premises or whatever - if it is the case) that your dd was at fault but kids all make mistakes/break rules and the school system should be able to accommodate this without causing further issues for the pupil/her parent.

Plus it's all very well to say leave the phone at school but maybe she thought you would be cross if it were left at school!

Well I would have expected the 15 year old to collect the phone the next day if it wasn't immediately available but tbh 13 year old dd would have been worried about getting in trouble for coming home with no phone or me realising it had been confiscated and done the same I know it!

But I would have expected school to assist the dd in some way if stranded for ANY reason although that just might have been a call home.

I don't drive and wouldn't have been able to get a taxi but I am pretty sure someone would have helped her.

Yanbu op. I don't allow ds1 to travel without his phone, as like a pp, it's how he lets me know he's caught (or missed) the bus, he's arrived safely, if he runs into trouble etc. And damn right, I'd be speaking to the school if their ineptitude had meant that he'd either had to miss the school bus, or leave his (not inexpensive) phone at school overnight. It would have meant, for one thing, that I'd have been inconvenienced either by having to pick him up, or by having to take him to school the following morning, because he didn't have a phone.

I have no issues with confiscation for misuse of a phone at school, as rules need to be adhered to (although I find it quite ridiculous that they wouldn't be allowed to look at their phone during lunch - ds often calls me, as he can be a bit anxious), but to allow that discipline to affect out of school time isn't on.

And as another pp said - imagine the outrage if your employer confiscated your phone - then even worse, couldn't immediately return it at home time!!

Please please please please tell me that the first thing you did when you did when you picked her up was confiscate the phone?

It is the ONLY possible response to 'I thought it was more important than catching the bus so that you didn't have to schlep to rescue me'. And that way, she won't miss the bus again tomorrow, will she?

It would have meant, for one thing, that I'd have been inconvenienced either by having to pick him up, or by having to take him to school the following morning, because he didn't have a phone.

The blame would lie squarely with your son for breaking the school rules. Or would he be completely blameless in your scenario? And you'd not let him travel to school without a phone? Might be time to cut the apron strings a bit.

And as another pp said - imagine the outrage if your employer confiscated your phone - then even worse, couldn't immediately return it at home time!!

If you are on your phone during work hours in breach of your workplace rules, then your employer has every right to demand you stop, and repeated breaches could lead to formal warnings and losing your job.

My 15yo wouldn't have had money for a bus even in the next yown.
Everything system school us on parentpay a day money in scholarship is not allowed. She has a council issued bus pass for the school bus only so if this had been my dd she would have been stranded.

15yo are notoriously k own for being surgically attached to their phones. I suspect most kids her age would have gone for the phone rather than the bus I this situation.
As a mum I would be pissed off with the situation. Both with my dd and the school for having a disorganised way they deal with confiscated phones.

Dam auto correct - no cash allowed in school.

Midnite - you conveniently left out the part in my post where I said I have no issues with confiscation for misuse of a phone at school, as rules need to be adhered to (although I find it quite ridiculous that they wouldn't be allowed to look at their phone during lunch - ds often calls me, as he can be a bit anxious), but to allow that discipline to affect out of school time isn't on.

In other words, of course I wouldn't see my son as blameless for losing the phone in the first place, but I would certainly blame the school for not returning it to him in a timely fashion, and causing him to miss the school bus.

And no, just because I don't want my anxious ds travelling longish distances alone without his phone in case of emergencies, doesn't mean that I need to 'cut the apron strings' as you so nicely put it. I think I'll be the judge of how ready he is to do that thanks.

If it was lunchtime what was the issue with them looking at their phones anyway

Not usually a problem, but often kids are filming and that is when they are confiscated. I don't know if this is the case here, but at most schools that's the problem.

OP

She was not stranded - there is always someone in school until 6pm ish - she might have had to sit in a classroom with a teacher marking/prepping, or the library.

OP the situation you are describing (right down to the town being split in two) sounds like the school I used to go to. In which case I would describe the 2 mile walk home as very safe, with a wide path alongside a 40 limit road and a pedestrian crossing. It is a route that many children from 11 and up regularly walk at the end of the school day. I'm glad you have accepted you are being U, there really was minimal risk to your 15yo dd, she could have walked into the town easily and waited at the library/coffee shop (if it is indeed where I am thinking of, apologies if not! Does the town begin with T?)

Many schools have a rule that they can't have phones out during school hours

• increases risk of phones being stolen
• increases risk of teachers and others being filmed / uploaded to Twitter for mocking etc
• decreases students socialising by speaking to each other
• increases students phoning home and parents getting involved in tiny petty issues that school can resolve
• increases risk of parents phoning during lesson time by accident
• increases risk of parents phoning with bad news (yes this happened - mum rang daughter at morning break to say her granny had just died. Cue daughter inconsolable all day long. Why couldn't she have waited till she got home?)
• increase in students phoning home to ask parents to collect them / drop off forgotten things etc

I've worked in schools which allow them to use phones as long as not in lessons as well as schools where phones are not allowed out at all in school hours. The problem with the former is that they are endlessly making or taking calls, they blank staff in corridors or put their hand up -"talking to my mate" they finish calls off as they enter the room; the absolute latest phone is a must because it's constantly on display; their whole world of text/whatsapp/photos continues without pause throughout their day at school, lessons and teachers being irritating interruptions to Twitterland and not a focus at all.

School should definately only have one place where confiscated items are held until the end of the day, and that place should be clearly signposted for the children and staff. That is a failing of the school in this incidence, and would probably be the only reason I would contact the school, if at all.

If this had been in my neck of the woods it wouldn't have been safe for a child to walk - the 2.5 miles to the closest secondary is 2 miles of unlit, no pavement, 60mph winding country roads. The second closest is 3.5 miles of dual carriageway. I cannot imagine a single person on this thread being happy for their child (or any person) walking either route.

Lesson learned OP, she won't do it again

Yabu. My dd goes to a school that has no bus o where we live. She has to walk to ds school and get a lift with whoever is picking him up.

She is in year 7 and I would expect her to prioritise being at ds' school on time over getting her phone.

She wasn't stranded and she made a choice that resulted in you leaving work early.

Was there really nowhere she could have waited. All secondary schools I know have a library that is open way past finishing time and after school clubs. Could she not have done something until you finished.

Most schools here are open until 6pm. Maybe it's just this area. They have homework clubs fora kids who are struggling or waiting for lifts, or don't have access to computers at home.

And the fact that teens think their life starts and ends with their phones, does not mean schools should pander to this.

Oh and my dd would ring me. Not her dad. Because her dad works with food so can't always just pick up his phone.

My phone is always on me as it's the main number for our business. The calls to the office are diverted to me when I am away from the office. Because I use it for business I make sure it's always on and within reach.

Not a feminist issue. A logistics one.

imagine the outrage if your employer confiscated your phone

An employer wouldn't confiscate your phone, if you were using it in defiance of work rules and practices, they would discipline you by going down the route of firing you.

I have been to several places where it is a requirement to leave them at reception and having a phone out means getting escorted from the premises.

I would be a bit annoyed at the school, TBH