Wake County school board members aren’t interested in a total ban on cellphones at school, nor in keeping things the way they are.
That was the message from many members Tuesday during the board’s work session, where the board continued to deliberate on a districtwide cellphone policy, which with replace or revise school-level cellphone policies.
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“I don’t think we should ever go to the ‘you can’t even bring it on campus,’” approach, Board Member Sam Hershey said.
That would upset enough families to make them leave the district, Board Member Tyler Swanson said. But there’s still a need for a consistent, districtwide approach that also minimizes the burden of enforcing it.
“Teachers are becoming cellphone police,” Swanson said.
At the same time, board members said they know many parents want restrictions to help their kids focus but many also want to be able to contact their kids during the school day — for planning or for emergencies.
It’s not a contradiction so much as a balance board members need to try to achieve, said Michael Martin, who is advising the board on revising its technology policy to address cellphones. Martin is education manager at RTI, which is consulting the district.
“I think one thing that’s universally challenging is that cellphones can be really distracting,” Martin said.
Parents are asking for a change, board members said.
“I’ve heard more support for us to do something, implement something, than people going, ‘No no you don’t need a policy on that,’” Board Member Lynn Edmonds said.
But the district’s biggest challenge may end up being its size, Martin said. More than 160,000 students and 199 schools is a lot to manage, he said.
The current approach in Wake County to restricting cellphone use in schools is a patchwork across schools.
Swanson described differing policies just in his Cary district: Numbered cellphone pouches at Green Hope High, chair-based cellphone pouches at Cary High, smart watches in airplane mode only at West Cary Middle. Within a single school, teachers may use different methods to stow away phones during instructional time, such as pouches or cubbies or lockers.
In other districts, officials have moved the burden of enforcing cellphone use in class to administrators. In those districts, teachers automatically call the principal’s office any time the spot a cellphone out in class when it’s not supposed to be.
While the Wake County school district hasn’t inventoried how many schools have cellphone restrictions, numerous — if not the large majority— do.
A 2022 federal survey indicated 76.1% of the nation’s schools had cellphone restrictions in place.
The school board wants to have the new districtwide policy in place by the next school year, which begins in July at year-round schools.
Still, board members are interested in going to other parts of the county to solicit feedback from people on a cellphone policy, rather than simply discussing the matter at their offices in east Cary.
Later this winter, the school board will conduct focus groups — and its already asked for feedback from other regularly convening groups, such as the superintendent’s student advisory council — and will report the feedback to the school board, likely by sometime in March.
On Tuesday, the board discussed what information they still wanted before coming up with a new cellphone policy, such as finding out more about what other districts have done and the results they’ve gotten so far. They also want to know what nearby charter schools’ policies are.