Mobile phones to remain available under policy
Sep. 15—Should the St. Joseph School District tighten its mobile device policy, most students would continue to be allowed to access devices for emergency communications during class times.
The issue at hand, SJSD leaders have explained, is the distraction posed by the use of a cell phone, or (ever-increasingly) a smartwatch paired with the cell phone hidden away. Students who are using their issued laptops can be monitored to make sure they're staying on task and completing electronic exercises and assignments.
The surreptitious use of devices is thought by many educators nationwide to be highly deleterious to academic progress, and more than 70% of U.S. districts have addressed the issue via policy in recent years, as reviewed on Wednesday by the SJSD Policy Committee. The Board of Education, which next meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 26, at the Troester Media Center, is likely to join that trend.
Joanna Burns, whose daughter is a sophomore at Benton High School, said she recognizes that distracting device use is a significant academic concern, but the ability to call home at need, especially during a crisis, takes precedence.
"Regardless, she's going to have her phone on her," Burns said. "Who's going to enforce searching my kid? Are they going to search the kids every day, do they have time for that? I don't think so."
At Wednesday's meeting, the four school board members in attendance — President David Foster, Vice President LaTonya Williams, Kim Miller and Phil Vandel — ruled out the mechanism adopted by some schools in which students are required to turn out their pockets and place all devices in a box or bucket for the duration of class. As long as active device use does not occur during class hours, no violation is possible.
"If things are going on with a relative or something like that, there's a possibility of emergency use," Miller said. "That's important to maintain."
The consequences of a violation are unlikely to differ significantly from the status quo. Burns spoke of two incidents in which her daughter has been caught using a cell phone in class. On the first instance, her daughter got the phone back at dismissal time, but later on, Burns herself had to come to the school to pick the phone up. She spoke to how, although adoption of simple to understand, "black and white" policy is being sought, it seldom works out that way.
Attendance is another concern. Would there be a risk of a student reacting to a mobile device crackdown by refusing to show up to class reliably?
"We've got more kids in this district that are defiant against authority than I've ever seen in my life," Burns said. "They gotta get the kids to school first. Let's figure out how to get the kids in school before we worry about battling them over a cell phone."
Marcus Clem can be reached at marcus.clem@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowClem
