As schools begin the second semester, new cell phone policies appear to be making a positive impact.
Schools across Tennessee adopted a new cell phone policy last summer, further restricting cell phone usage on school campuses. Overton County Director of Schools Kim Dillon said administrators and teachers are noticing a difference in students this year.
“There’s eye contact, they are talking to each other, they are talking to teachers,” Dillon said. “I think the culture and climate at the high school… it’s very different and very positive, and teachers are reporting that there are fewer instructional interruptions because there are no cell phones.”
White County Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said White County already had a similar policy before the state made it a requirement. Dronebarger said the policy has been very effective, especially at the high school and middle school.
“In the school building itself, the principals are reporting just a lack of discipline referrals on their desk,” Dronebarger said. “Teachers are saying that they are having less distractions, that students are conversing with one another, they are communicating better person to person, and overall just a better environment.”
Dronebarger also said the school system has seen a reduction in anonymous tips that have been turned in, which usually come from things posted on social media. Dillon and Dronebarger said that they are not dealing with as much pushback as they had when the policies were first implemented.
“I’ll be honest with you in the beginning, we were very nervous about how it would be perceived,” Dillon said. “But I feel like overall it’s been, you know, we have had parents in support of it. The students, maybe not in the beginning, were in support of it, but I think that they have seen that it is not as bad as they thought it was going to be.”
Dillon said Overton Schools would like to add some sort of pouch system to better enforce the policy. Dronebarger said as of now, White County Schools has no plans to make changes to the policy.
“I don’t think so, it’s working really well,” Dronebarger said. “I think one of the main concerns from the public side of things was parents just being fearful they can’t get ahold of their students in maybe in an event of an emergency, but we have such good robust communication systems in place now. We use a system called ParentSquare, where we are able to send text messages, calls, and emails instantly to parents to keep them aware of anything that is going on. So I think that has calmed some of those fears, and of course, you can use the old-fashioned telephone to call the school as well.”
Dillon and Dronebarger said they are both looking forward to getting testing scores back for this school year to see if the cell phone policies improved student scores.