Leave your phone @ home
Greater Victoria schools have policies in place to ensure no cell phone use during school hours.
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You spent all summer mowing lawns to earn enough money to buy an iPhone and you can’t wait to show it off to your classmates when school’s back - but that’s not going to go over well with administrators.
Officials say it’s undeniable that cell phones are becoming more prevalent on school grounds, but they are trying to combat their use in class.
“There’s quite a number of kids that have cellphones,” said Stephen Bennett, principal of Victoria High. “The policy we have is that kids can have cell phones, they just aren’t used during class time.”
The policy at Vic High has been in place for two years, since staff noticed growing numbers of students overstepping their allowance during school hours.
“I don’t think that they (cellphones) were rampant, but it became evident that we needed to establish some etiquette with some kids,” said Bennett.
As it stands right now, each individual school creates its own policy on how to best deal with portable devices, however it’s widely accepted throughout the district that phones cannot be on during instructional time.
“We don’t want cellphones interrupting the learning process,” said Bennett. “We’re in the education business. We need to teach kids in a bunch of different areas, and cellphone appropriateness is one of them.”
He said the policy was also brought in to minimize the potential for cheating - students can send text messages over cellphones to each other during exams.
Louis Scigliano, principal at Glanford middle school, said cellphones are popping up more frequently even in younger grades.
“We haven’t had a big problem with that, but we have a clear code of conduct,” he said. “You put it in your locker. You don’t walk around at recess, don’t take pictures, don’t do anything with it during school hours.”
He estimated that more than half of his 400 Grade 6 to 8 students had cell phones last year, and although he expects that number to rise, he doesn’t anticipate it to be a problem.
“If you set the standard high, the kids respect that,” he said. “They’re out on the property at 10 after three calling their parents. That’s what they’re for ... rather than having 15 kids in the office to use the phone. It actually makes life easier for us.”
District policy for portable electronics - cellphones, iPods, MP3 players, PSPs, laptops - gives individual schools the discretion to apply appropriateness of use, so long as it relates to the learning process.
But Bennett said, although it’s in the teachers’ hands to allow certain electronics in class, students are respectful of the school environment.
“When you speak with them reasonably and you have conversations about why this is an issue, they’re fairly compliant. You will always run in to the odd issue, but typically the kids are good about it.”
kslavin@saanichnews.com
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