In Sullivan County, Tennessee, a recent development has caught the attention of locals.
Cell phones have become an essential part of our daily lives, something that the majority of us possess and utilize regularly.
Some schools in our area are already implementing this to a certain extent.
“A lot of the legislation that is looking to be passed, we are already following that in Sullivan County,” said Andy Hare, principal, Sullivan East High School.
Here is the proposed measure:
Local Education Agencies (LEAs) and public charter schools will now be required to enforce a policy that prohibits students from using or accessing electronic devices during instructional time, unless the device is authorized or provided by the LEA or public charter school for educational purposes. This new requirement aims to create a focused and distraction-free learning environment for students. Local boards of education and public charter school governing bodies must develop and adopt a policy to implement this prohibition, ensuring consistency in its application across different educational institutions.
“Sullivan County’s policy is that the phones are to be silent and turned off — turned off or in silent mode during instructional time,” said Hare. “In between classes and at lunch, before school, after school, obviously, they can use them.”
Tennessee lawmaker proposes bill to restrict student cell phone use during class (WCYB Photo)
Teachers in Sullivan County are employing creative strategies to address the use of cell phones in their classrooms.
“It’s really neat seeing how they’ve adopted their classroom procedures with cell phones,” said Hare. “A lot of them use the phones to check attendance, by having their own allotted slot in phone caddies or in a charging station that is associated specifically with that student, but they are very creative.”
A teacher went so far as to designate a specific area in her classroom as a “phone spa,” emphasizing the importance of giving phones a break just like people need one as well.
Staff members are also preparing for specific situations and scenarios by making appropriate contingencies.
“If there’s a specific need, all they need to do is communicate with the teacher and they allow them to check if ‘my mother is in the hospital, I want to make sure she is ok’, or ‘I need to check my blood sugar’, because a lot of those are associated with that.”
As technology advances, policies and procedures also evolve.
“We try to use a little bit of a commonsense approach with it because like it or not, phones are not going away, technology is only going to advance,” said Hare. “We need to be on the good side of it and learn how to use it for positivity and to help maximize student learning.”
The House K-12 Subcommittee will be discussing the measure introduced by Rep. Alexander.
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