Donna Thornton, Editor
The biggest change for back-to-class in the new school year is something students can’t have in their classrooms: cellphones or other wireless communication devices.
Blame it all on the FOCUS Act — legislation passed last session that prohibits student use of smartphones or other wireless devices in Alabama public schools during the instructional day.
Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill into law last month, and she said her backing of the measure came at the request of teachers and parents.
“In my State of the State address, I repeated the requests of Alabama teachers and parents in calling for a ban on student cellphone use in our schools,” said Ivey.
“Smartphones have beneficial roles when used in proper settings. However, these often-disruptive devices have no place in our classrooms during the school day except for educational purposes or during an emergency. The FOCUS Act will enable students to ‘focus’ on learning while in school rather than on their phones.”
How do the people most affected by the new rule feel?
Recent graduate Declan Karr of Boaz said it’s very different from her high school days. She attended Boaz until her senior year, when she transferred to a Birmingham school.
While she said phones could be a distraction, for the most part, students only used their phones when their class work was done and they had down time, breaks or lunch. “If a teacher asked them to put the phone away, they put it away,” she said.
One mom said her kids don’t like the prospect of being without their cellphones. “They like to have access to me,” she said, and she admitted she likes having access to her children, too.
Her children are in school at Boaz, and her middle schooler already has been used to having restrictions on phones at school. When students go into class, they put their phones in a holder — the kind used to store shoes — until class is over.
She has one child in middle school and one in high school, and the elder is responsible for taking the younger to school and picking her up.
She said they’ve been careful not to take advantage of being able to use cellphones, but they’ve used cellphones to keep one another informed when plans change, or should one of the children get sick.
If practice is canceled, for example, they need to communicate changes in plans.
The changes required by the FOCUS Act may make that more of a challenge.
Being a state law, all school systems are under the same basic rules. Some leeway was allowed in how students would be disciplined for infractions. The day school begins may be different. (Boaz City Schools return to class today, Marshall County Schools start Friday, and Albertville schools head back to class Aug. 12.)
But none of them will go back with the same phone freedoms as last year, and that may be as hard on parents as it is on students.
“We understand that parents may want to be in contact with their child during the day, and we want to reassure you that student safety is always our top priority,” reads a message on both the Albertville City Schools and the Boaz City Schools website. “If a student needs to reach a parent or if a parent needs to reach their child, our school offices are always available to help facilitate that communication. We’re asking families to support this policy as we work to create a more focused and distraction-free learning environment for every student.”
Passage of the law requires school districts to pass policies that will keep wireless devices powered down and put away during classroom time.
The only exceptions will be for educational activities authorized by teachers, and medical reasons. For example, if someone with diabetes has a monitoring device that works in conjunction with a cell phone, they would need to have access to it.
In passing the FOCUS Act, lawmakers said the policy will help remove diversions. “As a parent, equipping my children to excel in all aspects of life is priority number one, and what they learn in the classroom plays an immense role in that,” said Rep. Leigh Hulsey. “The FOCUS Act will limit distractions and provide an avenue for every student in our state to get the absolute most out of their day at school, leading to a stronger Alabama of tomorrow.”
Hulsey, R-Helena, was a sponsor of the legislation.
Students will have their school-issued Chromebooks to use during the school day.
Lawmakers sought to address the risk of even those internet-enabled devices by requiring local school boards to adopt Internet safety policies to govern student access to the internet on school-issued devices.
It also requires social media training for all students before they enter the eighth grade.
