Cellphone ban to continue during school hours

A recent policy change regarding cellphones being carried to school by students shows the controversy is continuing despite the no cellphone policy taken by the board ? a policy which does not include teachers.

Having banned cellphones from students during school hours, the board might just have to ban them from teachers as well. Several allegations of teachers using their cellphones while in a class setting have been brought to the board?s attention.

?I?ve seen one instance myself,? said school board chairperson Debbie Watlington during the monthly school board meeting Thursday night. ?I walked into a classroom and the teacher had to get off the cellphone. Does the board want to add something into the policy about teachers and cellphones or leave it up to principals? Teachers are supposed to be setting a good example.?

The discussion brought strong responses from the principals who attended the meeting. Apparently none were informed of the allegations being made against their teachers.

?You can?t get reception inside our school,? said Centertown Elementary principal Janie Moore. ?So I don?t think it?s any of my teachers. If it was, I should have been informed. I would want to be the one to take care of it.?

The board decided to give the principals one year to get the situation under control. The board stressed that principals should inform teachers, and other school employees, about appropriate cellphone use.

According to the board, teachers should only use cellphones in the teacher?s lounge or during a planning period. If the situation persists, next year a policy will be issued restricting cellphone use by school employees.

During the meeting, three changes were made to the cellphone policy.

? According to the old policy, cellphones were banned during school hours, 7:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. The board agreed to change that time to 6:45 a.m. to include any student arriving at school early.

? According to legal council, one section in the policy stated students would be allowed to keep their cellphones in their car but banned cellphones on school property. As cars are parked on school property, this part of the policy was unclear from a legal standpoint.

According to WCHS principal James Bennett, he has been taking the cellphones if they were found in cars during drug busts because he believed that is what the policy called for.

?If I find them while searching for drugs, I take them,? Bennett said. ?No cellphones on school property.?

After-school activities were discussed and the need for teens to have their cellphones available to them for these activities, but not on their person during school hours. The board, with Bennett?s approval, opted to allow students to keep their cellphones inside their cars.

? The only other change to the policy involved changing the word ?cellphone? to ?personal communication devices? which is meant to include items like beepers as well as any other personal items carried by teens.

What will remain the same is the first and second offenses for carrying cellphones into school. For the first offense, the phone is taken from the student and an adult must come to the school. While retrieving the phone, the adult must sign a statement informing them a second offense will result in the school keeping the phone until the end of the school year.

Several parents have come before the school board asking for the return of their phones because they are paying the monthly charges but are unable to use the phone. The board has upheld the policy and has not returned the phones stating that the parents knew what the punishment would be for the second offense because they signed the statement.

One parent of an 18-year-old did not know about the first offense and wanted the phone returned on that grounds. Because the student was 18 and considered an adult, the student signed himself and didn?t inform the parent about the offense. In this case, the board stated the student must take ?personal responsibility? for the loss of the phone and the phone was not returned.

Consideration was made to changing the second offense punishment to removal of the battery, which costs more than most phones, but the board and Bennett felt this punishment would not stop the problem.

According to Bennett, there were 289 first offenses and only 24 second offense during the last school year. With so many first offenses and so few second offenses Bennett feels the desired effect, deterring students from carrying their cellphones on school property, is being obtained.