On Monday Dec. 9, after two readings of a new district wide cell phone policy, the USD 497 Board of Education voted 7-0 in favor of the new policy. Effective Jan. 6, the policy will implement a cell phone ban during instructional hours with exceptions for high school students. 

At the high school level, these exceptions will include access during passing periods and lunch, as well as access for students with medical needs that require them to have access to their phones, and students with certain 504 or IEP plans. 

With regards to implementation of the policy, Principal Amy McAnarney expressed that January and February will be used as a trial period, with both Lawrence High and Free State administration planning to regroup in March to discuss any issues that arise post-implementation. 

“When [administration] met with Lawrence High we decided that we would all get back together again at the end of February, beginning of March, and we would take a look then and see what the fourth quarter will look like,” McAnarney said. “ I know that a lot of what will be happening in the third quarter is reflection. What’s going well, what not, if there’s anything we need to adjust, and we’ll be getting people’s opinions there.”

McAnarney also expressed that the transition will be a process, and that it’s not expected to happen overnight. With this transition, McAnarney believes students and educators will see many positive results. 

“I think the main concern it will address is loss of instructional time,” McAnarney said. “There are other benefits as well that I think educators will see, and [one] of those would be improving students’ mental health. We’re hoping that our students not always checking social media … will improve their mental health. And then also, another issue that we see with cell phones, is students have more opportunities to do bullying through social media. So that’s another area that we’re hoping to address, and obviously byproducts of all of that, we would hope that students’ grades would improve because they’re more focused in class.”

Agreeing with the benefits of the cell phone policy, Spanish teacher Paul Rosen emphasized the need he sees amongst students for a policy that helps them stay off their phones. Rosen also discussed how he views the policy as a strong backbone to point to which will support teacher’s ability to create a distraction free environment. 

“It will certainly benefit the teachers and classroom environment, because kids will hopefully be paying more attention to what’s going on in the classrooms, as opposed to not,” Rosen said. “And then, it should make it easier for teachers to just say ‘No, you know what the policy is, keep them put away.’ That won’t have to be a constant battle or struggle.”

Discussing the implementation of the policy, junior Crosby King expressed concern in regards to the responsibility placed on teachers to enforce, specifically if the policy doesn’t align with the teaching style or classroom environment of the teacher. 

“If you don’t normally care about students being on their phone, because your thought process is that if a student’s on a phone and they fail my test, that’s not my problem, I’ll put in this zero. [The policy says] I don’t care if that’s your thought process,” King said.  

King also expressed a concern that the policy will prevent students from gaining soft skills, including self discipline, that are necessary beyond high school. 

“It might be more productive, statistically speaking, to have to have a full on cell phone ban, but that just means that when people get into college and get in an environment where the professor doesn’t care if you’re on your phone for a class, that student now has to learn those soft skills in college, when realistically, that should be a soft skill that they picked up in middle school,” King said. He added that “Would you rather have them learn that soft skill of regulating [phone usage] and being on top of it themselves when they’re in the support of high school, or when they’re out on their own at college?” 

Free State administration practiced cell phone free days, Tuesday through Thursday of this week.