New rules about cellphone use in the Haines School are on the way after the school board voted Tuesday to require students to stow their personal devices in designated areas in each classroom.
The board tweaked its suggested policy this week after getting feedback from teachers and students about how it could impact them. That included removing language that would have required elementary school students who would turn their devices in to their homeroom teachers.
“They don’t want to be responsible for them,” said Lexi Dewitt, who said she ran the draft policy by elementary teachers. “They really liked the idea, they really don’t want cellphones in the classroom.”
Principal Alex Van Wyhe said that in the high school, the staff consensus was that they were happy with the new policy and that it would be a minor adjustment to the current language in the student handbook.
One friction point, he said, would be that currently middle-school students are allowed to access their phones during lunch but the new policy would not allow that.
“Staff are in favor,” he said. “I didn’t speak with middle school student council.”
There are exceptions in the policy which states that nothing precludes a teacher from being able to direct students to retrieve their phones and use them for a specific purpose.
“Teachers do that consistently for video projects, or in a cooking class they might use that for sharing a recipe with one another or running to the store to get groceries, that kind of stuff. So there’s time and places where we’ll be intentional with them,” he said.
Van Wyhe did point out to the board that restricting cellphone use would not stop students from messaging each other or their parents, since they can often access messaging apps when they log into school laptops.
Students with disabilities who need to use portable electronic devices have a specific carve out under the new plan, and that use will be outlined in their individualized education program.
Several other school districts across the state have established similar cellphone restrictions, including in Anchorage and Juneau. In Fairbanks, elementary school and middle school students have to turn their devices off and store them in lockers or other designated areas during the day. High school students in Fairbanks can use their devices during lunch. Other districts, like the Mat-Su, banned cellphones and smartwatches during all school hours.
After the meeting, superintendent Lilly Boron said the vast majority of her discipline issues were related to how students communicated with each other via cellphones at school. She said she’s looking forward to students having to spend more time together talking with each other in person. She also thinks the extensive cellphone use has an impact on the students’ mental health – particularly in the elementary school-aged students.
“I think it has an impact on all of our mental health,” she said.