RACINE — The Racine Unified School District has approved a new cell phone policy that will be in effect when students return to class this fall.
The approval came Monday after the Board of Education asked the superintendent to strengthen RUSD's policy and months of discussion.
"Eliminating the distraction of electronic devices including cell phones for students while in class could potentially help the district's goal to improve the environment to make it more conductive to student learning," RUSD Board of Education President Jane Barbian said in a statement Tuesday.
The new policy is most strict for K-8 schools, where students are encouraged to leave their devices at home. If they do bring them to school, they must be turned off and stored away from the student during the school day.
High school students will not be able to use their phones during instructional time but will still be able to use them during passing and open lunch periods.
RUSD parent Demonte Thompson said the policy could curb distractions but will limit parental ability to know what's going on in schools.
"It's not all bad, and it's not all good," he said.
Thompson said he sees some benefit in the new rules but raised concerns about losing visibility into school life.
"You catch the bad stuff, but the con's now, since they take it away, you might not ever see that part," he said.
Casey Robbins, an RUSD parent and high school teacher within the district, said he supports limiting phone access for younger students.
"I think hands-on learning is the best," Robbins said.
Robbins said he is cautiously optimistic about how the policy will be carried out.
"I think it'll be good if administration kind of follows through with it," he said. "There has to be action behind it. It can't just be words."
RJ Fergus, a grandparent of an RUSD student, said phones have no place in schools but raised a practical question about the high school policy.
"If they say that you can have it on passing hours, where does the kid keep the phone?" he asked. "Kids are going to try to bring the phone into class and say, 'Hey, I forgot to put it in my locker,' or things that way. Or what do they do? Walk into the classroom and put their phone in a big basket, and then they risk people losing their phones?"
The policy was shaped in part by the policy used in the Madison Metropolitan School District, according to Barbian and Superintendent Soren Gajewski.
Gajewski addressed the policy's flexibility at Monday's meeting.
“In the spirit of continuous improvement and reflection, we will continue to look at how things are going and make tweaks and adjustments over the course of the year, and think through it for next year," he said.
The new policy does allow for students to utilize their phones for specific exceptions including health care needs and as required by a student’s Individualized Education Program.
"Eliminating electronic devices during the school day has many benefits but also many complications," Barbian said.
"We understand it may be a difficult adjustment for some students, parents, and employers at first, but the district will provide support to our students and staff in order for this new policy to be successful," she said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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