School District 72 (SD72) has developed an operational procedure to ring out mobile phones and other digital devices in classrooms.
The Ministry of Education and Child Care mandated school districts around the province to create a policy surrounding digital device use. The policy will take place July 1, 2024.
"What the ministry's aim and goal was, is to create more structured learning time in schools and reduce the amount of distractions that were happening in our schools, certainly at the secondary and middle school level, but maybe even a little bit sometimes at [the] elementary [level]," said Superintendent Geoff Manning during the school board meeting on June 18. "So the guiding principle of this operational procedure is really to make instructional time instructional time."
Manning says this does not mean digital devices like mobile phones will never be used in school. According to the operational procedure, they will be allowed during instructional time under the supervision of a teacher or on special days when they would be used for educational purposes.
Students at elementary schools, according to the procedure, will have no mobile phones at school. The only time allowed would be with permission from their teacher or a school principal/vice-principal. Middle school students can bring them to school, but will be expected to keep them away from the classroom and are not allowed to use them during lunch or recess. At secondary school, students are allowed to use them during breaks and lunchtimes but are also expected to keep them away unless directed to use them by a teacher during instruction.
A letter from the school district is set to be delivered to parents of students. It outlines the procedures.
SD72 is leaving codes of conduct and individual consequences to schools.
"We are not going to micro-manage that at the school level, but schools will be developing their codes of conduct for infractions and for when people are not following those rules," says Manning.
Trustee Daryl Hagen brought up medical situations, such as diabetes, and wanted to make sure the policy was more education-focused as opposed to educators becoming the "digital device police."
"From what I understand, we want to improve the quality of education and this is just one small way in which we can say we have to pull the reins in on this and what we're looking for is not to stop what's necessary but to encourage learning, which we think is necessary," he says. "I don't know what the address to that would be, but hopefully we don't have to be setting whole specific rules in place to say 'Okay, your phone is gone, penalties are applied.' It just doesn't seem like a positive learning environment."
According to the policy, the district's inclusive education department will work with schools to examine health and medical needs to ensure students will have access to digital devices if they need them for those purposes.
"There was an awareness by the ministry and an awareness that we followed that we make allowances for all those things to make sure we're building not only a positive environment but a necessary environment for some of those students that have those needs, so that's written within the policy," says Manning. "We have no interest in becoming the cell phone police, that's for sure."
