text: stolen phone - is the school to blame? my brother's cellphone was stolen from school today. he's writing exams and it's school policy not to allow students to keep their phones on them, to prevent cheating. they have a "system" where the device gets a stick-on label with the student's name on it, gets signed in and is put in a box which is supposedly supervised by the teacher. once the exam was over, the phone was missing, meaning someone signed out 2 handsets. i do not blame my brother, as he was simply following school rules... my question is, should i hold the teacher/school responsible, as someone was obviously negligent? i agree that cell phones have no place in the classroom.  however, when the school decided to put a system in place to hold cell phones for students, they took that responsibility from the student.  if the school had an absolute policy to not allow cell phones then they would have no responsibility to replace or even care that your brother had his stolen.  since they did implement a system to "hold" them for students, then they are accountable for the phone while it was in their possession.