If the principal feels the need to do this, clearly there has already been a problem. Stop coddling the kids, and if you are one of the kids, don’t whine about it. Today’s kids have a lot more stuff than we ever dreamed of having. Frum or not, all students need to know that the rules WILL be enforced. As I said earlier, the Yeshivah is not a Democracy.
There is absolutely no reason why boys should have a phone on them during class hours, even if they are silent. There is always a compromise to be made that addresses the needs of the student versus the scool policy. Each boy can have a special area where his own cell phone is kept during class, and allowed access only during a break.we grew up without cell phones, and it didn’t hurt us a bit.
Kids can use phones to waste time in class, to text each other, to make drug deals (in the secular school system this is a terrible machlah), to cheat on a test, to look at stuff they shouldn’t be looking at, to check on ball game scores, etc. etc. None of these things constitutes the ever-elusive “emergency” that the boys seem to feel will arise, and if one does arise during classtime, Ch”vS, then the phone can be made available to them in a second. Kids WILL and do try to get away with anything, no matter how “good” they are.