Conroe ISD Cell Phone Committee Meeting 3

K-6 recommendation, 7-8/9-12 review, and apparently everything is fine?

*These are my personal notes and thoughts, which do not represent the district or committee as a whole, nor do they reflect what the cell phone policy may or may not become.

This is part 3 of an ongoing set of committee meetings regarding cell phones in CISD schools. If you are not up to date, start with this post first.

All presentation content shared in this post can be found on the CISD website here.

I have begun collecting research on the topic here.

Meeting Summary

• Reviewed survey responses from teachers and administrators.

• Reviewed K-6 Recommendation to be presented to the Board at the next Board meeting. The committee voted 100% to recommend the following for K-6:

  

• Many of the Junior High and High Schools principals were in attendance to discuss their thoughts on cell phones and made their own policy recommendations.

• Committee reviewed this feedback in group discussions.

• More surveys taken by the committee, and another parent survey in planning to go out week of Oct 9th. This survey will have input from the committee.

• Dr. Taylor presented on what the district is doing this fall for guidance and counseling related to mental health (copies below).

• Attendance was very high this meeting; I’d say at least 95%.

“Why Are We Here?”

This was the question I asked the High School principals, because here is what they, along with Elementary and Junior High principals, ALL said:

• We do not have issues with cell phones.

• We have policies in place for cell phones.

• These policies are well enforced.

• What works for one school may not work for another.

• The main challenge is aligning new teachers to enforce these policies consistently. Instructional coaches are assisting monthly to help align teachers with policy.

• Principals met with local student leadership groups to get their feedback. Here is what students said:

  • “Cell phones not an issue.”

  • “Lunches are chill time, don’t take away phones at lunches.”

  • “We can limit ourselves.”

  • “Mom is the primary person I talk to.”

  • “Why should we change the policy?”

With the exception of a few principals who shared how they turned around their cell phone issues recently (e.g., York, Knox), they all seemed to shrug off the idea that we need a district policy.

What is happening here? If there are no issues, why do we have this committee?

There were several follow up questions by the committee to principals, and they did recognize the connection between social media and mental health impacts, but there was one key thing they all appeared to agree on:

Cell phones are not an issue during school. The issue begins outside of school, and it comes in the next day. This includes things like students posting negative things on social media about other students, cyberbullying, threats, home life, suicidal thoughts, and so on.

The primary issue is that schools typically have to clean-up a mess that starts outside of school hours. Sometimes local admin gets an alert the night before and they spend time working to prep for the day (e.g., report to counselor, law enforcement, etc.).

With that said, here were the guidelines recommendations by the Junior High and High School principals. These are still in review by the committee:

Teacher Survey

There were 628 teacher responses to their survey:

Note that hardly any teachers supported SHAC’s recommendation of two 10-minute breaks. More than half responded that students should be able to access their phones during lunch, class change, and when included in teachers’ lesson plans.

Personal Thoughts

I am skeptical from what principals reported. As each of them talked about their school, I began to realize that most of them were probably not going to give us the details on issues they have had with cell phones in the past school years. Rather, I suspect that cell phone policy has been recommended and implemented at all school levels this year.

I am also of the opinion that too many school principals and APs are out of touch with classroom teachers. They may not see the challenge of cell phones the same way teachers do as they are not the ones directly dealing with them.

Since we all first began discussing cell phones after SHAC’s presentation back in August, the Facebook groups have been lit up with everyone’s opinions. After I posted the first meeting summary, I received tons of feedback, which included teachers and substitute teachers.

I can say with confidence that what the principals reported at the committee meeting was not in line with what is being discussed. Here are some examples copied/pasted from my Facebook Messenger:

• “I saw your post regarding cell phone policy at CISD. Nothing I have seen addresses lack of enforcement of cell phones in classrooms or by administrative personnel. Teachers are losing / have lost the battle of the cell phone in the classrooms. Students are quite literally addicted to their phones and will not put them down / away. I believe teachers are unwilling to deal with confrontations with students due to lack of support. Personally, I think phone signals for students should be blocked in their entirety. I sat in class today and watched zombie students who are addicted to their phones and would do absolutely nothing when they didn’t have their phone in their hand.”

• “Never seen a student come close to a panic attack but today it was a big, burly football player. Had to surrender his phone for a classroom activity and I thought he was going to have separation meltdown.”

• “The phone battle in the classroom was an underlying cause for me to return to higher ed and leave public schools.”

• “I'm back in the classroom today at CHS. Removed a football player from my classroom because he just blew me off regarding phone use.”

From a few Facebook threads in the parent groups:

• “This is all going to come down to one more responsibility for teachers to be the enforcers. Students already ignore the no phone policy in my class. If I had to stop class to take up every phone I saw I would never get around to teaching. And don't even get me started on the dang ear buds. Those are the greater evil in my opinion.”

• “As a teacher coming from a district where NO phones or earbuds (automatic referral if taken out of backpack) were allowed in the classroom after multiple years of allowing it, it CAN work. However, the entire school, teachers and admin, have to be on the same page and enforce the rules.”

• “If they would allow the teachers to make using the cellphone pockets MANDATORY….that would go a long way. My husband taught at Knox and it was a battle every class period…every day.”

There have been many other stories collected about students using cell phones in school improperly.

Much of this all comes down to enforcement of rules, which sadly the committee has not yet discussed. The idea is that the guidelines will be district-wide, and it will be up to local administrators to enforce them as they do today. Local Foundations teams will assist with guiding any adjustments that work within the district guidelines, but I suspect this could mean going back to what they were already doing.

Will this make a difference?

For myself, I see value in creating a district guideline or policy that aligns all the schools under one consistent set of rules. This is because we have seen firsthand where a lack of policy can create absolute chaos in a school. They need to be aligned so we can move on and focus on more important matters.

Local school admin may think everything is fine, but many of them are long removed from the classroom, and a newer principal may not be well equipped to create or manage policy.

The teacher survey showed that they are open to allowing phones in teachers’ lesson plans, which tells me they are confident in their ability manage phone use. From what I have seen, it all comes down to how local admin enforces policy (e.g., backs them up or throws them under the big yellow bus).

If a teacher has district guidelines behind them, I believe that gives them more support for managing their classroom. I support that.

Guidance & Counseling Fall 2023

CISD Fall events for mental health education:

Other Item

At the end of the meeting, I spoke with a few staff members and one of the two students on the cell phone committee. The student mentioned something I was not aware of related to cell phones in school.

Students (and parents) ordering food delivered to schools has become quite the annoying problem. Door Dash, Uber Eats, and others can overwhelm front desk staff, cause disruption at the front doors, and can occasionally mean food is stolen from wherever deliveries are left.

Why are we allowing food deliveries to schools? Is this not a serious security issue?

Next Up

• Another parent survey is going out week of Oct 9th. This survey will have direct committee feedback for which questions to ask.

• The committee has been offered campus visits Oct 11th - 17th to discuss cell phones directly with staff.

• The Committee is invited to the next Board meeting as Dr. Medford and Dr. Taylor present the K-6 Recommendations.

Thank you for reading!

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Meeting Summaries
Cell Phone Committee Meeting 1 - Introduction
Cell Phone Committee Meeting 2 - Survey Results, Roundtables, and more
Cell Phone Committee Meeting 3 - K-6 Recommendation, 7-8/9-12 Review
Cell Phone Committee Meeting 4 - Campus Visits, Teacher Panel, Closing
Cell Phone Collected Research - Reference