Every so often, somebody, somewhere shows they have good sense. The New York City Council did just that last week when the body overrode Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on cellphones in New York City schools. By a vote of 46 to two, the council passed Intro. 351-A. Intro. 351-A, according to a news release from City Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr., "legally solidifies the right of students to possess cellphones on their way to and from school, thereby putting the onus on the city to develop a plan dealing with cellphones during school hours. The bill could provide the legal basis for a parent to bring litigation against the city demanding they provide a reasonable means to accommodate a student's right to carry a phone to and from school."

We have several times expressed our agreement with Vallone's and the council's position. Cellphones, especially in New York City, and especially for the city's schoolchildren, are not a frivolous toy. Many students in this city, especially in the upper grades, do not attend neighborhood schools. They travel great distances from neighborhood to neighborhood and from borough to borough to get to schools that best foster and serve their talents and abilities. Of necessity, many families have both parents in the workforce, some of who must also travel considerable distances, often by several modes of public transportation, to get to jobs that enable them to put food on tables, clothes on backs and lunch money in their children's pockets. And far be it from us to capitalize on the greatest tragedy suffered by this city and nation in recent history, but one outstanding lesson arising from the events of Sept. 11, 2001 was that parents and children need to be able to contact each other in times of crisis. Nor need a situation be a national emergency to demonstrate the importance of parent-child cellphone communication. "Hi, Mom. The subway broke down and I'm going to take the bus. I'll be about half an hour late getting home," be the message received directly or shunted to voicemail, has saved many a parent from gut-wrenching anxiety (and many a child from a scolding, justified or not).

Cellphones equipped with cameras have been used to cheat on several occasions, and there is certainly no excuse for any student- or any teacher, for that matter- to be talking on a cellphone when class is in session. All the schools in the city should establish and enforce an across-the-board rule: When class starts, the cellphone is off and stashed in pocket or purse, No exceptions, no excuses. Any conversation so long that it cannot be conducted in the five-minute break between classes should be held outside school hours, anyway.

Vallone believes, as do we, that the importance of cellphones to the public safety of New York City's children should outweigh other concerns. The full ramifications of one problem he cites, the [seeming] inability of teachers to control a few bad kids, are the subject of another editorial. We point out, however, that there were disruptive kids in the world's classrooms long before there were cellphones. Simply put, teachers need to be able to enforce rules and deans and principals must back them up, whether those rules concern cellphones or anything else.

Modern technology has provided us with the ability to keep in touch with the people about whom we are most concerned, no matter what obstacles arise. We would be foolish- worse, we would be inexcusably negligent- if we did not allow our children to use that technology, even as they move from class to class in school.