Yelm Community Schools (YCS) is looking to revise its policies regarding student use of cell phones after a recent survey of secondary students found that restrictions are not being enforced, leading to phones becoming distractions in classrooms.
Superintendent Chris Woods shared during the Thursday, Nov. 21, school board meeting that he surveyed 297 students at Ridgeline Middle School. Student representatives on the board met with fellow classmates as well as Associated Student Body (ASB) leaders to discuss the growing concern in secondary schools.
Yelm High School ASB President Lucy Mohrweis said that students agreed unanimously that cell phones are an issue and that students are unclear of when it’s appropriate to use their cell phones in school and often abuse that confusion.
“One thing that students don’t necessarily understand is when they’re a toy versus when they’re a resource. We have to identify the different times in which it’s OK to be on your phone and other times in which it’s not OK to be on your phone,” Mohrweis said.
The survey of RMS students found that 73.7% of students have a cell phone available for everyday use, and 42.8% of students use their phone in school every day. Nearly two thirds of students surveyed said they believe phones should be allowed in school with some restrictions, while 20.2% said no restrictions should be placed and just 6.1% said phones should not be allowed at all.
About 69.4% of students said phones are sometimes a distraction in the classroom, 22.9% said they are always a distraction, and 7.7% said they are never a distraction. Nearly half of respondents said phones can sometimes have negative impacts on students’ social interactions at school; 22.2% voted yes they do, and 27.9% voted no they don’t.
YCS’ current policy, 3245 under Students and Telecommunication Devices in its policies and regulations, states that, “Telecommunication devices shall be turned on and operated only before and after the regular school day and during the student’s class breaks, unless an emergency situation exists that involves imminent physical danger or a school employee authorizes the student to use the device.” It also says that, “Students shall not use telecommunication devices in a manner that poses a threat to academic integrity, disrupts the learning environment or violates the privacy rights of others.”
The policy adds that students shall comply with any additional rules developed by their respective schools concerning the appropriate use of electronic devices, and that students who violate the policy will be subject to disciplinary action, including suspension or expulsion.
Mohrweis and her YHS classmates believe that the policies need to be clearer districtwide, from school to school and from classroom to classroom. She noted that cell phone use habits are built at a young age and that teachers say freshmen have the biggest issue with phones.
“We’ve identified it’s because when they go into middle school, they have a strict no-phone policy, and then they go to high school,” Mohrweis said. “We talked about how it’s important to enforce your phone policies in early education.”
Mohrweis added that North Thurston Public Schools also has a no-phone policy, but friends within the district have told her they’re in the same position as Yelm students. She and her classmates also want teachers to be held accountable for policy enforcement.
“We identified that if it were to be a policy, we want all our teachers to be on the same page so it’s not different from class to class, except for some elective situations,” she said.
Woods said middle school students discussed how cell phone usage impacts educational development as well as social, emotional and mental health. They told him that parents and their rules at home also play a role in how students approach using phones in school.
“They said there’s a need for consistency and accountability, and this was particularly impressive when I heard middle schoolers saying that not only do students need to be held accountable, but parents need to be held accountable,” Woods said. “The students said they have guidelines at school with cell phones, and then they go home and it’s a free-for-all.”
Woods battled with the idea of how to ask teachers to monitor student cell phone usage and how and when it becomes a distraction.
“I think the challenge is, are we going to ask our teachers to police this, which I don’t think is a great idea and a good use of their time, but I think if it becomes a problem, then there has to be a consequence,” he said.
Student representatives of the board will be involved in drafting a policy regarding cell phone usage, which will be brought to the directors once completed.
“It was a lot of fun, and I’m very proud to be the superintendent of these students,” Woods said. “We should be going to them more frequently with questions.”
