Herricks Revamps Student Cell Phone Use Policy

Cell phones in the hands of students can be both a helpful communications tool and a source of considerable frustration.

Knowing this, the Herricks Board of Education adopted a new cell phone policy at their regular meeting last Thursday at the .

According to administrators, the new policy balances the desire of parents and students to be able to communicate with each other in appropriate circumstances with the desire of teachers and parents to have an educational environment which allows all students and their teachers to focus their full energy and attention on learning.

“Our students have violated the policy based on actual practice with teachers allowing students to take pictures of assignments on the board, so we have now amended [the policy] to allow that,” Superintendent Dr. Jack Bierwirth said.

The guidelines for the policy are as follows:

Elementary Schools: the use of cell phones in elementary schools is strongly discouraged. Special circumstances which would require the student to have a cell phone should be discussed with the building principal in advance.

Middle School: students are permitted to have cell phones in the middle school, but all phones must be off (vibrate also turned off) throughout the school day and not visible. For the first and second infraction, a warning will be issued and the cell phone will be confiscated by the staff member and sent to the main office. The cell phone can be picked up at the end of the school day. For the third infraction, lunch detention will take place with a notification to the family. For the fourth infraction, the cell phone will be confiscated by the staff member and sent to the main office where the parents will be notified and have to make special arrangements with the principal to pick up the cell phone. Student discipline will be after-school detention or one day suspension.

: students are permitted to have cell phones in the high school, but all phones must be off (vibrate turned off) and not visible in any instructional area. Instructional areas are defined as any classroom, computer lab, auditorium, gym, library or meeting room in which students are present and receiving instruction, studying, reading or taking a quiz or test or meeting in an assembly

Exceptions: with the teacher’s permission, students may use cell phones to copy assignments on the homework board. For the first infraction, students will receive a warning and the cell phone will be sent to the assistant principal’s office where the student must meet with the assistant principal at the end of the day to retrieve the phone. For the second infraction, students will receive a one-hour detention; for the third infraction, students will receive a 2 hour detention. For the fourth infraction, the student will receive in-school suspension and the parents will be contacted in which they must then pick up the cell phone or make special arrangements with the assistant principal for pick-up.

“We should probably extend this to iPads or tablets,” Trustee Peter Grisafi noted. “It sort of defeats the purpose that you take one device away, (but you can use another one).”

Dr. Bierwirth noted: “technology runs ahead of us.”