Phones must be shut off during school hours
Cell phones are now strictly an extracurricular activity for Santa Monica students.
The Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District Board enacted a new policy last week permitting students to carry cell phones with them to school, as long as the devices stay turned off during the school day.
“Clearly in the past there was a practice of students using them but an inconsistency on how to monitor them,” said Julia Brownley, school board president. “In the last few years we have had a policy on the books that said one thing but we allowed students to do something else. And in my opinion for good reason.”
Cell phones and pagers have long been prohibited at schools because of the perception that they were used in the illegal drug trade.
“But that perception is changing, and attitudes are changing at the state level, said Brownley. “Our policy is going to be a test period and we are going to reevaluate it at the end of the school year. If we need to tweak it at that time we will.”
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a spree of school-related shootings throughout the country, cell phones have proven to be instrumental in saving lives, and parents increasingly want their children to carry phones with them.
Last year the school board began talking about allowing students to carry cell phones in school, but they delayed the decision until the district administration could further study the legal and security issues. The result is a long policy that spells out who is responsible for lost or stolen phones and precisely when students are allowed to use them.
“We didn’t want to leave anything up to the imagination,” said superintendent John Deasy, “so we wrote out a detailed policy that left nothing unclear. We took our time but the end result is a better policy.”
Originally, the school board was going to allow students to leave their cell phones on during the school day, as long as the devices were left on mute or set to vibrate instead of ring. Concerned that students may forget to set the phones to not ring, the school board cut the measure out of the final policy.
“Our policy basically is (that) cell phones are permissive but, as long as they do not interrupt the educational process or present a safety issue,” said Brownley. “It clears any exceptions up and I think it’s a very good policy. When it’s said and done I think everybody, the general consensus in the community, is that we need this.” New president ready to hit issues facing school district
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 12, 2001. Read the original PDF.