As several eastern Iowa districts vote to restrict or ban cell phone usage in their schools, Union Community School District is ahead of the curve- with their policy in effect for several months now.
LA PORTE CITY, Iowa (KWWL) — As several eastern Iowa districts vote to restrict or ban cell phone usage in their schools, Union Community School District is ahead of the curve- with their policy in effect for several months now.
Ahead of this school year, the district rolled out new restrictions for cell phones in their middle and high schools. The middle school has a full ban on cell phone usage during the school day. The high school has restrictions on usage, outside of designated times or areas of the building.
Superintendent John Howard says so far, the new rule has helped the staff and students.
“It’s been great for us- student engagement is up, student focus is up, teacher focus is up, teacher engagement is up. Just overall academic success has really improved since we’ve gone to the different cell phone policy,” he said.
Howard says at the beginning of the school year, they had a good amount of enforcements each week of the rule. Now several months in, they average about 1 to 2 a week.
Howard says the policy is a return to older times, and while it took some time to adjust, they believe it is beneficial.
“In reality we’re kind of going to the way it was before cell phones. You call the office, you email the teacher, you email the secretaries, administrative assistants what you want to say; we’re kind of going backwards in that way- but we think having the positives of having a cell phone ban or limiting the access to cell phones during the school day outweighs the other issues we have,” he said.
This week, the Iowa City Community School District passed their own guidance on cell phone policy. They join Union, Kalona, Ankeny and more, restricting the students’ use of their phones.
Howard says since they first put their policy into place, other districts, and parents, have reached out with questions, and asking for advice.
“We’ve really seen people come and ask us about our policy- which we think is a great thing. Just to get the idea it can be done with the support of your students, with the support of your staff, with support of your parents, you can implement a policy like this,” he explained.
This upcoming legislative session, Governor Kim Reynolds has alluded that she will introduce a possible state law to ban the use of phones in classrooms. Howard says for districts who’ve look at possibly passing their own policies, they should wait to see what comes out of the session first.
“I would wait for the legislative session to see what the governor brings forth in her State of the State Address. There’s been a lot of speculation, there’s been a lot of communication out there that she will try to have a statewide ban- I’m not sure what that ban is going to look like, but I would advise districts that don’t have a plan yet to wait on that, and they can mirror that plan or make it even more strict,” he said.
Right now, we do not know the date of the Governor’s address, though it is historically before the beginning of the legislative session. The legislative session will begin January 13, 2025.
