Schools vary on cellphone policies; Cape can take phones for 5 days after second offense

Are cellphones a blessing or a curse in the classroom?

It's a question that's been debated hotly at least since the turn of the 21st century, with proponents arguing phones can be educational and opponents calling them a distraction.

Thomas Batchelor, a 10th-grader at Cape Girardeau Central High School, said students there aren't allowed to use their cellphones during the day and are required to keep them in their lockers until dismissal.

"I don't think anybody really follows that rule, to be honest," he said.

Instead, most students keep their phones in pockets or bags, careful to avoid detection by ensuring the devices are silent and out of sight.

After all, getting caught with a phone would be a violation of the local school district's policy, which prohibits displaying or turning on personal pagers, phones, digital assistants, laptops or any other electronic communication devices during a regular school day. That means no phones are allowed during class time, between classes or during breakfast or lunch.

Superintendent Jim Welker said students caught with phones during prohibited times usually get the devices taken away. A first offense nets a warning, and a parent must pick up the phone at the end of the day.

A second offense lands the phone in a five-day lockdown, with parents being able to retrieve it from the school office after day five.

If a student commits a third offense, the phone still is locked up for five days, but three days of in-school suspension are added to the toll.

All subsequent offenses can net up to 180 days of out-of-school suspension for offending students, plus notes on their permanent records.

These rules were last revised in 2010, Welker said, to prevent distractions in classes and to curb cyberbullying and complaints of personal phones being lost or stolen.

Even though six years have elapsed since then, the district makes sure to educate parents about its cellphone policy before each school year begins. Forms are sent home that must be read and signed before the first day of classes.

"We want to make sure parents are aware of the policy and what the consequences are so there are no misunderstandings," he said.

In some cases, however, accommodations can be made for safety concerns, such as those that came to a head earlier this month in the Neelyville School District.

There, the ACLU of Missouri said the district's cellphone policy violated the Fourth Amendment, because seizing students' personal property for several days could not be done without due process. School policy in Neelyville states the a cellphone will be confiscated for three days upon the first offense.

Although parent Marisa Lipsey conceded her daughter should be punished for breaking the district's cellphone rules, she told the Daily American Republic newspaper having the girl's phone taken away created a dangerous situation. Lipsey's daughter baby-sits her younger siblings each day after school in a rural area without access to a landline.

In the Cape Girardeau School District, Welker said, that kind of situation likely would be met with a compromise.

"If there's an emergency situation or extenuating circumstance, we've worked with the parents on that (in the past)," he said.

Plus, cellphones don't have much instructional value because of the district's 1:1 initiative, which makes electronic devices available for all junior-high and high-school students.

John Link, superintendent of the Jackson R-II School District, said that system used to prohibit cellphone use during the day, but "we are adjusting that as we go."

"We've kind of gotten a little more flexible with it, adjusting with the times," he said.

The district does not yet have a 1:1 initiative, so cellphones can be considered educational. An example would be students using educational apps for test preparation or research.

Link, who began his position last summer, met with administrators at the time, and they decided to relax the district's policy to allow phone use in classes for educational purposes, at lunch and between classes.

The idea is to treat students as responsible adults until proven otherwise.

"I think we're looking at a more technologically friendly environment in our district, and that was the first means of pursuing that," he said.

If students are caught misusing phones, such as texting in class or attempting to cheat on exams, the devices are taken away until the end of the school day, when parents can pick them up.

"We don't usually keep them past the end of the day," Link said.

In the case of phones being used illegally, the policy is to contact the proper juvenile authorities or police if a student is 18.

Once the phones are in the hands of police, they can only be retrieved by parents.

ljones@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652