SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO)– The Sioux Falls School Board is looking to answer the question of whether cell phones belong in the classroom.
During a Sioux Falls School Board Work Session on Wednesday, the board discussed the results of the cell phone survey that the district circulated over the month of January and what restrictions should be maintained or implemented to minimize academic distractions.
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No action was taken on any item at the work session.
A committee of 36 people, put together by the district created a series of surveys that were emailed to middle and high schoolers, parents, teachers, and principals.
The questions range from if phones should be allowed on busses, in the lunchroom, passing to another class, and in classrooms.
Below you can find the results from the survey.
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The district received a total of 12,100 responses to the survey, with 1,210 teachers across all school age groups, 5,958 students across middle and high school, 4,863 parents that have have children in every age group, and 70 principals across all school age groups
Some key results from the survey were:
Should cell phones be used by middle school students during the school day?
78% Parents said no
94% of teachers said no
94% of students said yes
94% of principals said no
Should cell phones be used by high school students during academic class time ?
49% of parents said no
68% of teachers said no
11% of students said no
56% of principals said no
The current policy is In middle schools, phones are currently not allowed in the classroom or hallways the entire school day. The high schoolers have a more flexible policy where phones are not allowed during class periods but can be used between classes and over lunch.
The School Board previously stated that the purpose of the study isn’t necessarily to change the current policy, but to work out some of the existing challenges with phone use in the classroom.
The recommendations from the Cell Phone Use Committee, would leave the elementary and middle school policy unchanged and would change the high schools current policy to allow the use of cell phones during lunch, in the hallways during passing time, but barring them from use classrooms for the academic periods.
Assistant Superintendent for the Sioux Falls School District, Dr. Jamie Nold, said the work from the Cell Phone Use Committee will go forward into the districts discipline matrix.
“The changes would be that we go into our discipline matrix and would make those changes in there,” Nold said. “Its only if the board would like to make some sort of a change and put something into policy would we need some sort of action on that.”
Nold said they are expecting the policy to be enforced, but the course that could take could take some different forms. He added that he has also met with many area principals to discuss what enforcement could look like.
“Taking it away or having it turned in to a homeroom teacher… several teachers started, at some of the schools, having pockets that they could drop them into in the high schools,” Nold said. “We did begin those discussions, we have started to rewrite it and I’ve hit 2 out of the 3 meetings to go and and have them approve it and make those slight changes.”
SFSD’s School Board President Carly Reiter, said while she was disappointed with some of the results, but she does respect the result of the survey and the feedback it offers.
“I think its going to be really difficult to have it in their hand and then walk into a classroom, put it away and walk out and get it back out,” Reiter said. “I think that’s going to be harder to police. I’m disappointed in the lunch aspect of it i talked a lot about the socialization and having conversations and looking your peers in the eye.”
