The Perry Community School District Board of Directors on Monday unanimously approved a new district-wide policy on cell phone usage in the classroom. Under the new rules, students in all grades will surrender their phones upon entering the classroom and get them back on the way out.
Students will still be able to use their phones freely in between classes and during the lunch hour. The policy will be enforced daily from 7:55 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.
According to the policy, cell phones and smart watches have become “a major distraction to the learning environment” in the middle school and high school “in recent years.” The administrators made the same point to the school board.
“I do think kids are, some of them are flat-out just addicted to their cell phones,” said Perry Middle School Principal Ned Menke. “It is not only hindering their learning in the school but is probably affecting all aspects of their lives, and we’ve got to do something about it as a school district to recognize a problem and also to help people understand that you don’t have to have a phone on you all the time.”
Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger echoed Menke’s view about students’ dependency and over-reliance on their gadgets.
“They’ve been a real problem for us,” Marburger told the school board. “We anticipate this policy is going to be challenging across the board. Kids are used to having them. They’re used to looking at them. I would say — there’s no science about this but I would say that 80% of the text messages they’re getting today are from mom and dad. We’re going to have to, you know, get back to the way we used to do things.”
In the old days, a parent wishing to communicate with his or her child would call the school’s main office, and the message would be carried from there to the child. PCSD Superintendent Clark Wicks said he hopes the new policy improves the learning environment.
“What this policy does is it gives administrators, teachers a great backing if this is approved by the board,” Wicks said. “It says that we’re serious about it. Then we have to, as a team not only of administrators but as a school, buy into the part that this is going to help students and help them learn. And I think it will help teachers teach.”
The administration was equally supportive.
“I feel like we needed a beefed-up policy a little bit and that we need to be more consistent among teachers on how we are handling cell phones,” Marburger said. “This will give us that.”
“I do think this policy is necessary,” Menke said. “We do realize we’ll have to do some training up front for the students in particular, but I think it’s an effort we need to tackle.”
PCSD School Board President Linda Andorf, a retired teacher who still subs in the Perry school system, said the policy will need to be uniformly enforced.
“Consistency of application is going to be highly crucial because there are some classrooms where it has been acceptable for phones to be out and in use,” said Andorf. “If we say, ‘You’re not going to get them,’ then we need to make sure that everyone is following it because there’s no point in having a policy if we’re not going to enforce it.”
Penalties for violating the policy increase by degree, with the phone confiscated and eventually the parents notified. PCSD School Board Director Travis Landgrebe said it might be best to involve parents early on when there are problems.
“I think the parents should be involved really at the beginning stages,” Landgrebe said, “but we need a policy, and this is a start.”
The new policy can also be found on the school district’s website.
What is going to happen when a shooter enters the classroom? None of the children have opportunity to call 911 for help. Just wondering.