Parents concerned over Tampa Bay school cellphone policies after Georgia shooting

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The recent shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia has raised concerns about school safety in the Tampa Bay area.

Parents are now voicing their concerns over new policies limiting cellphone usage in schools.

School officials said there are a few misconceptions when it comes to cellphone policy during an emergency, and the policy was created to keep students safe.

“I think there’s not one of us in Florida after what happened in Parkland that aren’t a student of the game…Do we have those kinds of vulnerabilities here and how can we fix them,” Chief of Security and Emergency Management for Hillsborough County Schools, John Newman, said.

The question is whether the schools cellphone policy is loose enough for parents to be able to communicate to their kids in the event of an emergency. The latest Hillsborough County policy allows high schoolers to have their phones during the school day, but only at lunch. For every other grade, phones can only be used before or after school.

“If anything like that were to happen, I would want to at least text him or, you know, I know that it should be silent during that time. But at least if he had some kind of way to get back to me through a silent text, I would know that he was okay,” parent Jessica Kelly said.

Kelly, a parent in Pasco County Schools said a recent incident made her take a close look at the district’s cellphone policy, which is like Hillsborough County’s.

“We were on a controlled campus that day and a child had brought an air gun, either on the bus or to school. So, I thought, oh, my gosh,” Kelly said.

But school officials said in the event of an emergency, when it comes to cellphones, all bets are off, but use it with caution.

“You don’t want to tip a bad actor off as to where you might be located, and if your phone isn’t on silent or someone’s calling, you forgot to put it on silent. You might tip off that bad actor as to where you are,” Newman said.

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