On March 13th the Carroll County Board of Education discussed their policy on Portable Electronic Devices (generally known as the schools cell phone policy). There was a presentation and a lot of discussion (more than an hour was utilized on this discussion at the meeting).
Student Representative to the Carroll County Board of Education (Sahithya Sudhakar) provided some very good feedback to the Board on the topic of cell phones use/policy in schools. You can listen to that part of the meeting here:
You can watch the full discussion from March 13th here: https://youtu.be/89rYKuHH-rs?si=G_tjQyH5Ya8eqWwk&t=4873
Observer Opinion: A few things really stood out in this discussion between the presentation and the discussions from the Board members:
- Staff and teachers should lead by example in regards to cell phone usage in schools (i.e. – if you do not want kids using cell phones in class or other times maybe that should be a rule for ALL EMPLOYEES as well)
- My favorite part of the discussion – Dr Dorsey states at the 2:12:20 mark of the video:
- “I was intrigued by the the modeling statement that was made that certainly we would want our teachers and our adults to model the expectations that we’re sharing with the students. I look around here and everybody has a cell phone right out in front of them and again and I’m sure everybody else has one very handy as well. So again I think with some training and some some work we too can put ours away.”
- The rules are maybe not clearly defined for students in regards to the policy and rules (be sure to listen to the Student Representative statements above)
- The general tone of the discussions and statements from the Board members seemed towards a more restrictive policy in the future. I hope that in their discussions and final decisions that this does not go too far and too restrictive at all grade levels for students
At the end of this discussion no action was taken as it sounds like the Board and Superintendent will continue to have discussions (internally within CCPS and with parents and students) in order to update the policy for next school year.
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