N.Y.C. teens pay valets to store cellphones banned in schools
Safety • For $1 a day, enterprising businesses use vans to hold devices.

New York • Thousands of teenagers who can't take their cellphones to school have another option, courtesy of a burgeoning industry of sorts in always-enterprising New York City —paying a dollar a day to leave it in a truck that's parked nearby.

Students might resent an expense that adds up to as much as $180 a year, but even so, leaving a phone at one of the trucks in the morning and then picking it up at the end of the day has become as routine as getting dressed and riding the morning-rush subway.

"Sometimes it's a hassle because not everyone can afford it," said Kelice Charles, a freshman at Gramercy Arts High School in Manhattan. "But then again, it's a living."

Cellphones and other devices, such as iPods and iPads, are banned in all New York City public schools, but the rule is widely ignored except in the 88 buildings that have metal detectors. Administrators at schools without detectors tell students, "If we don't see it, we don't know about it."

Schools where violence is considered a risk have metal detectors to spot weapons, but they also spot phones. They include the Washington Irving Educational Complex in the bustling Union Square area, a cluster of small high schools housed in a massive century-old building that used to be one big high school.

The trucks that collect the cellphones have their own safety issues — one was held up in the Bronx in June, and 200 students lost their phones. That could be why one operator near Washington Irving refused to speak to a reporter recently.

A converted disability-access van that's parked a block away on school days is painted bright blue and labeled "Pure Loyalty Electronic Device Storage." The owner is Vernon Alcoser, 40, who operates trucks in three of the city's five boroughs.

Alcoser would not comment, even though the names of news outlets that have run stories about Pure Loyalty are affixed to his trucks. Employees chatted but would not give their names as students lined up on a drizzly morning to surrender their phones.

"Next, next, have the phone off, have the money out," an employee yelled as the teens texted and listened to music until the last possible second. At the truck window, each student exchanged a phone and a dollar for a numbered yellow ticket.

"It's not that much of a hassle unless it's really crowded," said Gramercy Arts sophomore Chelsea Clouden.

The cellphone trucks appear to be unique to New York City. "That is hilarious," said Debora Carrera, a high school principal in Philadelphia who had never heard of a phone storage truck.

At Carrera's school, Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High, students operate a cellphone storage room where phones can be dropped off in the morning at no charge and picked up after school. For many teens, it would be unthinkable to leave the devices at home all day, Carrera said. "Their phone is like a family member. They love it."

For parents, the phone may be the only way of communicating with a teen who commutes two hours and gets home at 8 p.m., after sports practice. "It's ridiculous that the Department of Education doesn't allow us to store them on site," said Robin Klueber, the PTA president at Frank McCourt High School on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The Department of Education did not comment on whether lockboxes in schools were being considered. Spokeswoman Marge Feinberg would say only that "we have a longstanding policy that does not allow students to use cellphones in schools. It is in Chancellor's Regulation A-412, and there are no plans to change this."