WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) – Erin Nichols is the Principal at El Dorado High School, and said that it’s recent cell phone policy change has been a success.
The change said that students must stow away their phones during class periods.
“To be honest, it’s gone really smoothly,” Nichols said.
“We compared our current policy, which restricts cell phones during instructional time, versus the possibility of whether or not we need to do more,” says WPS Board of Education president Stan Reeser. “There was a state task force on cell phones, which dove into a little more than what our policy deals with. But what we need to do is circle back with our staff and our principals and our parents to find out whether or not they’re satisfied with the current policy.”
The Wichita district is looking at implementing a true bell-to-bell policy, eliminating access to cell phones for the entire school day.
This is similar to what the Kansas State Board of Education is voting on next month.
Reeser said that nothing is set in stone, and it would need to vet any new policy.
“It’s not even a point of contention and I don’t want to give out the impression that this is something that’s definitely going to happen because just because we are looking into it we may find out there are consequences we may not be aware of yet,” Resser said.
Nichols said that she’s happy her school made the change, saying teachers are already starting to see positive results.
“Students are taking their time, or they’re not rushing through their assignments to just hurry up and get to the next thing,” Nichols said. “Definitely through observations that we’ve had, even as an admin team, going into classrooms, you know, students like I said, they’re participating in discussions. Their engagement in class is definitely higher.”
Reeser said that the current policy is working right now, but the board needs to find out whether there are inconsistencies following the current policy and find out how large of a problem that really is.
