Students in at least one Midlands school district will have less access to their cellphones in the future, and others are likely to follow due to a new state law that kicks in next year.
Lexington-Richland 5 laid out changes to its cellphone policy at a school board meeting Monday, which would separate students from their phones from the beginning of the school day until afternoon dismissal.
The S.C. Board of Education unveiled its plans for a new cellphone policy in August, calling on districts to significantly curtail students’ access to devices during the school day . The state Department of Education linked the move to counter discipline and mental health issues tied to cellphone use, especially cyberbullying and online harassment directed at students.
The policy would apply to all grade levels in the district.
Teachers in a statewide department survey had also expressed concerns about losing instructional time due to students distracted by their phones. A large majority of the 50,000 teachers contacted for the study expressed support for a phone ban, the department said.
All districts in the state must implement the new cellphone ban by the time the spring semester begins in January. The ban must cover any device capable of receiving internet, wifi or mobile phone signals. Lexington-Richland 5’s designation also covers devices that can “captures images or video.”
Michael Harris, the district’s chief of student services, said the district would prefer to make it easy for students to comply, without phones having to be confiscated or stored separately throughout the school day.
“If they’re put away and silenced, then they comply,” Harris said. “If we have to store them, then we need storage units and additional responsibilities.”
As written, the policy would also prohibit devices on school buses, field trips and athletic events, although Harris said the district didn’t want to be “overwhelmingly monitoring” phone use outside of the learning environment.
Board member Mike Satterfield said he wanted any policy to be enforced consistently by all the district’s teachers. “Because some will say ‘put it up,’ and some will write you up,” he said.
Board member Catherine Huddle said she thought the district should require phones to be switched off rather than just silenced. “I’m wearing a Fitbit,” she said, and as long as her phone is on, “I can still read text messages and I can even answer calls from my Fitbit.”
Chairwoman Rebecca Blackburn Hines said that even with her phone off, she could make calls from her smart watch.
As written, the district policy covers smart watches, tablets and gaming devices along with cell phones.
Trustee Kevin Scully said he’s able to lock their children’s devices until after school gets out. He said that in the digital age, a state-mandated phone ban is an “archaic-feeling policy.”
“It’s going to be an ever-evolving situation,” Scully said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to put a lot of effort into enforcing this.”
Satterfield also asked whether there would be any exceptions for students to be able to contact their parents during an emergency, which he felt was the main reason parents wanted their child carrying a phone in the first place.
“A superintendent who we spoke to about our policy said, if they had an emergency situation, it was part of their district’s policy for students to contact their parents,” Harris said. “That’s not spelled out in this policy, but at least that much wiggle room is something we can consider .”
Other accepted uses under the policy include classroom-authorized uses and reasons of medical necessity.
Superintendent Akil Ross said he’s already spoken to parents whose children have access to their phones as an anxiety-reduction tool under a special education plan, and assumed those students will still be able to use them under the new policy.
“Pediatricians in our area are going to have a lot of students asking for that,” Scully said. He predicted requests for similar exemptions in the new year “are going to skyrocket.”
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