Tougher Cellphone Rules in Place for Franklin Co High School Students

There is a new cellphone policy in place for returning Franklin County High students this fall.

At the Franklin County Board of Education meeting last week, high school principal Roger Wilkinson said cellphone use for students will be more restrictive beginning in the new school year.

Wilkinson said previously teachers had some flexibility with how they dealt with cellphones in the classroom but with every student now having a Chromebook, students don’t need to use a cellphone in the classroom.

“Now that we’re on Chromebooks and coming out of the pandemic, we’ve made some adjustments to our cellphone policy,” he said. “Basically, we are going to have cellphones be out of sight and out of mind in all academic classes during the day. They need to be in silent mode or turned off and put away. They’re simply not needed for academic purposes unless that teacher has something special that she wants to do.”

Students also will not be allowed to wear earbuds or earphones during class because he said there have been instances in which students used them to cheat on tests with pre-recorded audio clips being played.

Also, when students use the restroom, they must leave their phones in the classroom.

Students caught using their phones during classroom time or other non-designated times, Wilkinson said will receive three warnings.

“The consequences break down to a warning from administrators. For the second offense, we will take up the phone for the day, counsel the student, or give him a referral. For the third offense, we’re going to make a break with what we’ve done in the past. We’re going to take that phone and keep it until a parent comes to pick that phone up,” he said.

Wilkinson said this policy change in cellphone usage must be backed up with parental support.

“One of the things I want to stress is that we’re going to have help from the parents on this. They have to help their student understand that they’re in school for a reason; to focus during academic time. We understand that students have jobs or that they may need to get in touch with their student during the day. And that’s fine if they want to text them or leave them a message but they need to understand that that student is not going to check that phone until a class change or at lunch,” he said.

But Wilkinson said there will be designated times during the day when a student will be allowed to use their cellphones.

“If you add up all the times that they have during the day, they’re going to have over an hour of time to check,” Wilkinson said. “They can use their phone during breakfast time prior to 8 o’clock, they have 27-28 minutes at lunch when they’re free to use their cellphones. And also we are going from five minutes to nine-minute class changes this year because we had complaints that students didn’t have enough time to go to the restroom. So, with nine minutes that will give them time to check to see if maybe their parents or their employer has sent them an important message.”

Wilkinson again stressed teachers and staff at the high school need parental support by stressing the importance of classroom time.