The Caesar Rodney School District Board of Education starts work on a new policy on cell phone use in schools.
The district has had a cell phone policy for a number of years, but in hearing from principals at a board meeting last week, it became clear many schools had their own policies, varying in details like when and where students could use their phones.
“We have a policy we don't follow," said board member Nicole Hill. "Everybody has admitted that the policy is there, nobody follows it, it's very lax. My kid’s in middle school, she texts me all the time from school.”
In discussing possible ways to update the policy and implement it consistently, board members, like David Failing, seemed adverse to calling the policy a “ban” on cell phones.
“You want to call something a ban - you know that's got a bad connotation to it, but I think we need to do something that controls it while the kids are in the classroom," he said.
Some board members said they wanted to get a new policy in place by September, although Superintendent Corey Miklus indicated that might be a tight timeline. To enact a new policy would also require an extra meeting of the school board.
The effort to develop a policy that is consistent and consistently enforced comes as a proposal to require schools to have such a policy made headway in the state legislature this year. That measure could be revisited by state lawmakers next year.
In recent years, state lawmakers have also provided funds for a pilot program to test cell phone pouches for use in schools. That pilot program was funded again this year to the tune of $250,000.
The new school year in the Caesar Rodney School district begins September 2.
