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By all accounts, Ohio County Schools had a good first year with its new cellphone policy. Students would put their phone away during class, but in-between classes would have access. That allowed parents to be able to communicate with children on practice changes, for example, while not impacting any classroom learning.
Yet now comes the West Virginia Department of Education with a one-size-fits-all approach for students when it comes to cellphones, based on a new law from the West Virginia Legislature. And this new policy, it appears, prohibits any use of cell phones throughout what it terms as the "instructional day."
"Essentially it says from first bell to last bell, you're not allowed to have phones," Ohio County Schools Assistant Superintendent Rick Jones said.
What the local schools will be doing is allowing students to use their phones briefly at lunch and also potentially several other times during the day. This will those students that don't take a lunch period to communicate with parents, if necessary.
"It's very frustrating," Jones said. "We did everything right. Our policy is great. They had great success with it at Wheeling Park. The kids, surprisingly, had no issues with it."
This is a perfect example of where a one-size-fits-all policy likely doesn't work. Ohio County and other West Virginia school districts that implemented a cell phone policy for students had good success last year. The West Virginia Department of Education should have modeled its policy off existing successes instead of attempting to rewrite the rules.
Everyone agrees cellphones don't belong in the classroom, but using common sense in crafting a policy is better than just a blanket "no use" during the entire school day.