NWCSD mulls student cellphone policy

THE DALLES — During the Aug. 21 board meeting for North Wasco County School District No. 21 (NWCSD), board members discussed Gov. Tina Kotek’s executive order mandating that schools across Oregon develop a cellphone policy. During the last legislative session, lawmakers addressed student cellphone use in classrooms by creating a law that has since been forwarded to the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) for specific rule-making.

During the interim, Kotek issued an executive order with deadlines requiring schools to adopt their own cellphone policies before the ODE rulemaking was concluded. The executive order requires policies be in place by Oct. 31 and be fully functioning at schools by the end of the calendar year.

In response to the governor’s orders, the Oregon School Boards Association (OSBA) created a model sample policy forwarded to districts, which was having its first reading at this board meeting.

NWSCD already has an existing pilot program that performed well and had been carefully thought out to address student and classroom needs.

Board Chair Betsy Hege indicated that she thought the language in the sample policy was very weak, anticipating that it was intended to help districts that had no prior policies so it could be tolerable to districts, families, and students.

Superintendent Carolyn Bernal said the new OSBA policy being applied to all the different settings in NWCSD would be very difficult as it is following a one-size fits all, which doesn’t work. The NWCSD pilot program policy was specifically scaled to fit the student populations in each school.

“How do we adopt a successful policy based on our pilot?” asked Hege.

Board member Kevin Kramer remarked that he felt the issue is about what is best for children, and cellphones cause electronic overload, combined with bullying and harassment. “I’d rather apologize than have whatever this new [policy] looks like. Kids need a line and if they cross it, there are consequences,” he added.

Hege said that beginning the school year with clarity for students and family was important in order to get things started off on the right foot, but wondered if the pilot program could continue without having to adopt the state-mandated policy. It was noted that there is still a lot of time to appeal and demonstrate success prior to the Oct. 31 policy deadline and Dec. 31 mandated roll-out.

Bernal said administrators were specifically hoping to have something that they can enforce from day one rather than switching gears mid-year.

Given that this is a first reading of the policy, Hege suggested collecting feedback to inform the policy that will be put in place. Board member Katie Kelley said it would be important to communicate what will be happening, and suggested using the letter that the middle school sent out last year as a communication plan used by the district before the school year start.

The first reading discussion was concluded with an agreement to conduct additional feedback to inform policy development, and board member Jose Aparacio suggested that language be reviewed to ensure it complies to state mandates.