The Oldham County Board of Education held two special meetings Aug. 6 and 8 to approve a new policy prohibiting the use of cell phones during school hours and heeded their high school administrators’ warning, deciding to allow cellphone usage during lunch and hall breaks.
The policy came about due to recently enacted state legislation, House Bill 208, that forced all public school districts in the state to adopt policy regarding the possession and use of “personal telecommunications device[s]” by students while on school property or while attending school-sponsored or school-related activity.
The bill specifically says that the policy “shall, at a minimum, prohibit a student’s use of a personal telecommunications device during instructional time, except during an emergency, if directed to do so by a teacher for an instructional purpose, or if authorized by a teacher.”
During their Aug. 6 meeting, the school board initially sought to use the bill to its fullest extent — prohibiting cellphone use entirely during school hours — but high school administrators shared their concerns with such a strict approach.
“The implementation would not be realistic to say ‘no phones from 9 [a.m.] until four [p.m.]. How in the world will we police that if a kid goes into the stairwell at a high school or to the bathroom?” said Oldham County High School Principal Natalie Brown.
“If our main focus is to improve instruction and support our new teachers and … [they’re] running around chasing kids in the stairwell, I don’t know that that is the best use of their time.”
“I think we’re all excited about the opportunity to really control cellphones in classrooms and I think having the same law and board policy is going to go a long way,” said North Oldham High School Principal Rush Sullivan. “It helps us hold our teachers accountable, but also holds us accountable, making sure we put that policy in place and follow it to fidelity.
“I think we’re all in agreement that the policy that comes out, we want to make sure we have our teachers’ back, the community’s back and make sure we’re addressing the real issue, which is the instruction in classrooms being affected.”
“What we’ve done at OC since I’ve been there,” Brown added, “we tell kids on a very frequent basis: ‘You can have your phones out before school, after school, at lunch and in between every single class, but they cannot come out during instructional time,’ and it works.
“It’s been effective … because we push on it, we purge, we do everything we can; but if there’s a board policy behind that, I can really make sure the teachers are consistently enforcing that rule … everybody agrees that the cellphones during class time are a huge negative …
“I would hate to see this kind of evolve into something that is unrealistic to enforce. That’s my fear.”
“I have classes here where a kid wants to get out their cellphone and take a picture of what they were doing today in biomedical science,” said Arvin Education Center Principal Matt Watkins. “I would love to share 1,400 kids’ experiences in the day at Arvin — that’s really important to do …
“On the other end of it, we’re raising … young people who are getting ready to enter society and we need to teach them responsibility of ‘this is when it’s appropriate, this is when it’s not.’”
“We have high school kids who have jobs,” Brown added, “[they] may receive a message about their job or different things that they can responsibly check their phone in between classes without being an issue.”
Watkins further expressed a concern with kids who participate in internships, field trips or other programs that take them off of school campus. “I’m not going to have that ability to connect with that kid to know that they arrived where they’re supposed to, what questions they have, what needs they have.”
“The relationships we have with kids as administrators are powerful,” said South Oldham High School Principal Melissa Woosley. “Do we want those to be negative in our halls? As we engage with them in the lunchroom? Because that’s what it’s going to be …
“I’ve been there in this district under some policy in my own high school that we changed because we wanted to change the culture and the climate and teach kids responsible use and appropriate behaviors. That’s what we’re supposed to do …
“Do we want these kids to be able to trust us or do we want them to see us as the cellphone police?”
Woosley also mentioned the time it takes to discipline each student, referencing how many may have to be disciplined if the policy included hall breaks and lunch time.
When Board Chair Carly Clem asked for the principals’ thoughts on allowing phones during hall breaks but not during lunch time, Brown answered that “it’s not enforceable … What they’re going to learn is: be sneaky, don’t talk to us.”
Watkins added that having to discipline students for using their phones during lunch or hall breaks could make them miss portions of class time — counterintuitive to the intent of the policy in protecting instructional time.
Board member Allison Sheffer asked the principals if they thought the consequences would be a sufficient deterrent. Sullivan answered that he wholeheartedly believes consequences are a deterrent for a majority of students.
“For some of our student body, they’re going to push the issue on a regular basis,” he said.
“Are we going to have people that do stuff that they’re not supposed to do? We’re going to have it regardless of our policy because … we’re dealing with young people making bad decisions [but those are] small numbers,” said Woosley.
Sullivan further brought up concerns with some of the consequences. “When we kept cellphones until the end of the day and made parents come to get them, we had parents who do not have transportation and their students take the bus home. So they just couldn’t come get them.
“We had students whose parents were out of town on business trips — that was six years ago, seven years ago — and now the majority of homes … in the district probably don’t have a landline … now we’re sending a kid who drives home without a cellphone. We’re sending a kid home on a bus who might spend three hours before their parent gets home and if there’s a medical emergency or any kind of emergency, they don’t have the opportunity [to call for help].”
Buckner High School Principal Beth Carter also mentioned that she likely doesn’t have enough space to hold students sent to Buckner High School through Oldham County Alternative to Suspension (OCATS) and would likely have to delay a students’ OCATS punishment weeks after they actually broke the policy.
Sullivan also warned that regular suspension “isn’t necessarily the punishment that we think it is for some students … some of them will say, ‘can’t you just suspend me instead of sending me to OCATS?’
“If the goal of the cellphone policy is to protect instructional time, I have significant concerns about suspending a kid for an entire day.”
Sheffer mentioned the possibility of doing other forms of in-school suspension, but Woosley countered that she, for one, likely doesn’t have the space or the faculty to do so.
“This policy is actually stricter than a vape being taken off of a kid,” Woosley later added.
“We want to do what you’re asking us to do as far as protecting instructional time and holding the kids accountable, and we find that this could be a great opportunity for us to partner as a whole county and say we’re all in agreement,” Watkins said. “We’re not asking for unfettered use of cellphones.”
In a five to one vote — Sheffer opposed — the board agreed to make the following changes to the policy:
- To allow student to use their devices during breaks between classes and during lunch
- To allow cellphone usage in the classroom if approved by an administrator, not a teacher
- To release a device held by administrators to the student at the end of the day, rather than forcing a parent or guardian to come to the school to get the device.
- Adding an exemption to the policy for any device a student is authorized to use pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The policy, approved at a special-called meeting on Aug. 8, states that “personal devices must be completely silenced and out of sight. Students may keep devices in their bag, backpack, purse, etc.”
The disciplinary actions are defined as follows:
- First offense: student referral, parent phone call and confiscation of the device to be returned to the student or the student’s parent or guardian at the end of the school day.
- Second offense: attendance at the next-scheduled detention and the first-offense consequences.
- Third offense: One day of in-school suspension, either OCATS or on-site, along with the second-offense consequences.
- Additional offenses: Third offense consequences and potential suspension at the discretion of the district.
The policy also states that parents and guardians can retrieve forfeited student devices during regular office hours and that students are responsible for their devices — the district “shall not be responsible for the loss, theft, or destruction of devices brought onto school property.”
The next Oldham County Board of Education meeting is scheduled for Aug. 25 at 4:45 p.m.
