HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale High School District 86 board members are considering banning students from having phones in the classroom.
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They pointed to Hinsdale School District 181, which requires middle school students to keep phones in their lockers during the school day.
Now, District 86 requires students to keep their devices powered off or silenced and out of sight during classes. The policy gives principals flexibility for a stricter policy.
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Hinsdale Central’s and South’s principals estimate about 80 percent of teachers have policies on phones, often requiring students to keep their devices in cubbyholes, Superintendent Michael Lach said this week.
Meanwhile, some teachers don’t enforce any type of phone policy because they feel they don’t need to, he said.
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“There’s another set of teachers that are sort of stuck,” Lach told the school board’s policy committee. “They want to have a cellphone ban, but they know it will result in conflict with students, and conflict with students is always hard when you’re trying to create a culture.”
When a board member mentioned keeping phones in lockers, Lach said he sensed few students use lockers anymore. That’s the case across the country.
“Teaching students to use their locker that they are currently not using in order to take away their most prized possession feels like an uphill battle,” Lach said.
But board member Jeff Waters said he was not worried about inconveniencing students. That’s because they don’t understand the benefits of removing distractions such as phones, he said.
In Naperville, the high schools have a policy requiring phones to be kept in lockers during the school day.
“Of course, there was resistance from students,” Waters said. “But apparently, it’s going very well.”
Part of teaching is to understand all the ways to maximize a student’s education, which includes discipline and enforcement of rules, Waters said.
The committee arrived at no conclusions, but members said they wanted the district to look into the issue.
Over the summer, California enacted a law requiring all school districts to come up with plans for limiting or banning the use of phones. Other states have also cracked down.
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