Many Schools Ban Hot Toy For Being Distraction
CALABASAS (CBSLA.com) — Fidget spinners are all the rage and sweeping school campuses across the country. But many teachers and schools have banned the hot toy for being a distraction in classrooms.
At A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, many of the students have their fidget toys out in between classes.
"It's in every classroom. Every kid has it," said 13-year-old Tiffany Nguyen.
"You can sit there for hours and hours and keep flicking it, and you never really get bored with them. They're just fun to spin," said 13-year-old Aaron Schiff.
"It probably went from having one on campus to having hundreds on campus over the past six weeks," AE Wright middle school principal Elias Miles said.
However, the toys are not always popular with teachers.
"We have kids who are using them, and kids who sit near those kids are distracted by them. Kids themselves using them are playing with them and showing them to friends," said teacher Hayley Tepper.
The spinners, which cost only a few dollars, started out as tools to help students with attention deficit disorders focus.
"Just like relaxes me. If I feel like doing something else with my hands, I have something to do," 12-year-old Savannah King said.
But now that they have become more of a fad than a concentration tool. School districts have had to formulate policies on these spinners.
While some districts have started banning them, the principal at AE Wright Middle School said he was not ready to do that just yet.
"On a case-by-case basis, teachers have made the determination: Okay, it's appropriate for you. When you pull it out, it's a total distraction," the principal explained.
Schiff can attest to that. "Some of them are really loud, and people are holding them up here watching them do it. That could be annoying," he said.
Kids are also buying, selling and trading the spinners on campus, which can lead to problems too.
But most educators told CBS2's Kristine Lazar that this fad will likely go away as quickly as it came.
