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Schools Get Stricter On Phones

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By MARILYN BROWN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 7, 2008

Updated: 06/07/2008 01:11 am

TAMPA - Beginning in August, Hillsborough County school students will have to keep their cell phones and other electronic devices out of sight or have them confiscated, school board members decided Friday.

The plan still needs a formal vote, but school board members said they are ready to crack down.

"If we see 'em, we take 'em," is how school board vice chairwoman Carol Kurdell summed up the board's shift in dealing with an explosion of texting and calling during school. The confiscations would be temporary, as they are now.

"You must enforce it if you put it out there," board chairwoman Jennifer Faliero said. "If you're going to do it, do it big."

Details - including consequences, and the rules for cell phone use by bus riders and teachers - still must be worked out before the change makes it into the student code of conduct for the 2008-09 school year. Friday's workshop meeting included six of seven board members, and they agreed on the tougher rule. April Griffin was absent.

Cell phone use in schools became a safety issue after 9/11, and a state law was passed to allow students to have phones at school. Hillsborough's policy has been that phones must be turned off during school. Students openly carry and use them, however, and enforcement varies by school.

As phone use increases and trickles down to elementary grades, teachers can't police the silent texting or the videos that end up on the Internet.

This year, state law also invalidated test scores of students with cell phones on them during the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

Friday's workshop included six principals, invited by administrators to offer practical input.

Burns Middle School has required students to leave phones and backpacks in lockers all day, Principal Brenda Nolte told the board. If phones were seen, they were confiscated until the end of the day, parents were called and an in-school suspension was enforced.

Board members liked that idea, but not all students have lockers, and Tampa Bay Technical High Principal Chris Farkas said that would not be practical at high school.

Farkas estimated 99 percent of his students carry cell phones, and it will be extremely difficult to change their habits: "If it's on them, it's going to be used," he said.

"I challenge you," he told the board. "Take eight hours and don't look at your cell phone."

If the board bans phones from sight, he and others said it needs to be clear to students and parents that phones cannot be seen from the first to last bell of the day.

Even elementary students are bringing phones to school, said Lou Cerreta, principal at Deer Park Elementary, and Tracye Brown, principal at Potter Elementary.

"There are cell phones right now in my desk," Brown said, noting that parents who were called to pick them up never did.

Parents will also need to be retrained, principals said.

At Orange Grove Middle Magnet School, "cell phones have become a real problem," Principal Linda Denison said. "A lot of parents call the kids. The kid goes into the bathroom to call the parent back.

"The parent believes it is a right to call their child."

The question was raised about whether teachers should be able to use cell phones if their students can't.

Students have complained that teachers call or text during class. Yvonne Lyons, Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association executive director, said it would not be unreasonable to expect a teacher not to be on a cell phone during instructional time.

Lyons noted that cell phones have been used to call for help in class and saved both students' and teachers' lives.

The board decided to ask teachers for input on their cell phone use before procedures are drawn up.

They also lauded the unusual workshop format of having principals taking part in discussions and said they want to continue that. The principals also offered their ideas and experience about handling discipline matters, another topic of Friday's workshop.

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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