EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — A Metro East school district is cracking down on students using cell phones in the classroom, and it hopes more schools in Illinois will follow suit.
This joins a growing effort nationwide to ban cell phones on campus.
Recently, the Edwardsville Community Unit School District 7 Board of Education passed a resolution to limit cell phone use in schools across the state.
The resolution recommends that the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) consider bringing the proposal to state lawmakers to pass legislation requiring each school district to create a policy banning the use of cell phones during class time. The exceptions would be monitoring a health condition or if its included in an individualized educational plan.
District 7 will present the following proposal to the IASB in November: "The Illinois Association of School Boards shall request that the Illinois legislature consider legislation that empowers school boards to adopt policy regarding the use of student owned wireless communications devices. School districts will be required to create policy that states that students may not use wireless communication devices during instructional time."
The school district already has a policy requiring students to put their cell phones away during class, but District Superintendent Dr. Patrick Shelton said it hasn't been working.
"We already have a policy that does not allow cell phones; we've not really been aggressively following that policy because we have students using phones for academic purposes. So it becomes a little bit of a gray area on what that looks like. But the policy was there, and our handbook was clear, and the board felt very strongly that it's time to take a pretty aggressive stance with protecting teen mental health and making sure that our teachers have teens' full attention when they're in the classroom," Shelton said.
The proposal goes on to say: "A teacher or school administrator may designate a location for wireless devices, and such devices must be silenced and put away as directed. Legislation would allow schools to prohibit use of wireless communication devices during lunchtime and transitioning between classes. In addition, the Illinois Association of School Boards shall request that the Illinois legislature consider legislation that requires every school district to adopt a policy that prohibits and prevents student access to social media on Internet access provided by the school district and district owned devices, except when expressly directed by a teacher for educational."
Shelton said the two main reasons are to keep students focused and to better their mental health.
"We heard loudly from our teachers last year that cell phones were a major distraction, helping them to keep students' attention. There's their own mental health and level of anxiety because we know that the use of cell phones increases anxiety in our teens. There's also the the communication aspect in schools where we know that there have been incidents of bullying, there have been incidents of students coordinating certain activities, using cell phones. And so all that all that does is distract from education. we want to make sure that we are focusing on educating kids and creating great global citizens. That's what we want when they walk out our doors," he said.
Shelton said the proposal would allow students to easily get to their phones in case of an emergency.
"The goal is not to take a student's cell phone or to not let them have access; the goal is that we want to limit their access, but we also understand the safety component of them being able to get to their cell phone. The first thing we're gonna do is say, can you just keep it in your backpack? So that's obviously that will limit distractions, hopefully, limit notifications, and then they still have access if they need it."
After District 7 presents the proposal to IASB in November, school board representatives across the state will vote on it.
No matter the outcome, Shelton said their district will implement the new plan.