Riverview School Board revises phone policy for next year to bell to bell, no cell to match new state law

That contrasted with the district’s efforts to put a new phone policy in place last July, after Sanders started an initiative to make schools “phone-free zones.” The district formed a committee that included staff, parents and students to determine what its policy would be and ultimately decided on the high school level to allow teachers to set their own classroom rules.

In December, district officials discussed the policy and the board revised it to make it where students in all classes would not be allowed to possess a phone during class time. “Right now, our kids can have them between classes and at lunch time,” Superintendent Stan Stratton said this week.

The district did not need to discuss the new policy change, according to Stratton, because “the new law is from the beginning of the day to the last bell they can’t have them.”

Act 122 was passed by the Legislature on Feb. 18 and signed by the governor Feb. 24. The legislation states that policies submitted by the school districts “shall, without limitation, restrict the possession of a personal electronic device during the school day,” defined as “from the time students are required to be at school until the time students are dismissed.” It also says that the policies shall “prohibit the use of a personal electronic device during the school day,” with exemptions for health reasons, extracurricular activities, emergencies or the device being school-issued.

Stratton said students in ninth-12th grades at Riverview currently put their phones in a door hangar during class time while next year the district will be using pouches paid for by a state grant to store the phones for the school day.

While Riverview has adopted an all-day ban for all grade levels for next year, state legislators from White County said in February that school districts have “some discretion” to determine if they want to ban them “from classroom time to classroom time or bell to bell.”

“That’s the way I understood it,” Sen. Jonathan Dismang (R-Beebe) said at a legislative update at the Searcy Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Rep. Les Eaves (R-Searcy) added that “it will be up to the school to a large degree to come up with a plan on how they implement that.”

The Searcy School District plans to “continue to follow our policy,” according to School/Community Coordinator Betsy Bailey. “Searcy School District already implements a cellphone-free learning environment.”

The high school handbook states that “from the beginning of the school day until the end of the school day, students are forbidden from using cellphones or personal electronic devices during class time. Such devices must be stored out of sight and turned off. Exceptions may be made by the building principal or his/her designee for health or other compelling reasons.”

For all other grade levels, students are not allowed to use their phones or other communication devices, except for granted exceptions, during school hours.

“If a student is found to be in violation of the cellphone-free policy, we will take disciplinary action as stated in our handbook,” Bailey said. “Searcy schools participated in the pilot program this year, and we have the storage pouches available at our campuses. The pouches will be utilized if necessary.”

While Searcy is sticking with what it has been doing, Beebe Superintendent Dr. Chris Nail said his district is “definitely going to have to change our high school policy.”

Beebe’s current policy allows high school students “to have their cellphones in between classes and during lunch.”

“Every other policy kind of fits the legislation,” said Nail, who will be starting as the Benton School District’s superintendent July 1, “but since I’m leaving and Mr. [Zeb] Prothro is taking over, he’ll probably deal with that this summer, prior to [the new school year starting]. ... With the new legislation, you can’t have it at lunch time, so we’ll have to change that for sure.”

White County Central Superintendent Pharis Smith said his district also will “go with the new policy Gov. Sanders put in place” to ban phone use on all grade levels from bell to bell. “We’ll go with the pouches next year” to lock them away.

White County Central’s current policy also allows high school students to have their phones except during class time. “The phones are put up during instruction time and they can get them out between classes,” Smith said in January.

“We really haven’t had any issues so we’re just going to stay where we’re at for the remainder of the school year,” he said this week.

The Pangburn School District also allows high school students to have their phones, but only during lunch. However, Superintendent David Rolland said, “We are waiting on guidance from ASBA [the Arkansas School Board Association] before we make our policies for next year.”

The Bradford School District started the year allowing cellphone use at lunch as well, but “our plan next year is that it’s going to be bell to bell,” Superintendent Sarah Wickliffe said.

“They won’t be allowed to have them,” Wickliffe said. “We do have the Yondr pouches. Right now, we’re using the Yondr pouches that if they [the students] get caught with the cellphone they get one chance and then they have to go into a Yondr pouch.”

The pouches lock after the phone is placed inside and can be unlocked only by tapping it on an unlocking base outside the phone-free zone.

Wickliffe said despite plans to restrict use from bell to bell next school year, the district hasn’t “acted on any policy for next year yet. We were really just waiting until the entire legislative session got over with [April 16] and then we’re going to do our policy.”

She said the district’s policy for this year “has went over really well, so we’re not anticipating a huge change next year.”

Neither the Bald Knob School District nor the Rose Bud School District allows phone use by students during the school day, so the only change for either is that Bald Knob will start using pouches next year.

“Our current cellphone policy doesn’t allow kids to have their phones throughout the entire day. They don’t get them between classes, they don’t get them at lunch, so we’re basically already following what they [the state] want,” Bald Knob Superintendent Dr. Jed Davis said. “We don’t have cases right now. Once they walk in the doors, they have to be put up, but now what we are going to start doing is if they do get them [phones] out, we’re going to start putting them in a case. We haven’t started that yet but that’s what we’re going to implement next school year.”

Rose Bud Superintendent Allen Blackwell said his district does “not plan on using the pouches at this time.”

“We plan on staying with the policy that we adopted last year,” Blackwell said. “We have not had any major issues with cellphones this year.”