Wisconsin school district considers ticketing students for cellphones

Annysa Johnson | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

There are a few ways a student could snag a municipal citation at Kewaskum High School in Washington County. Disorderly conduct. Underage drinking or vaping.

Now, under a proposal up for discussion by village officials Monday, the district might soon add whipping out a cellphone in class.

The Kewaskum School District is seeking a village ordinance that would allow for the ticketing of students who violate its cellphone policy a third time. If approved, it would be one of the more draconian policies in southeastern Wisconsin. But Vice Principal Mark Bingham said it was a necessary step to rein in what has become the No. 1 discipline problem in this exurban Milwaukee high school.

"We want to try to eliminate those distractions and truly utilize that classroom time for learning," said Bingham. "Obviously ... our hope is that we don't get to that situation where we have to involve law enforcement."

As Wisconsin students return to school for the 2018-'19 school year, they'll find a hodgepodge of policies aimed at managing the use of cellphones, which have become — depending on the teacher and the day — a powerful portal to information and resources or the bane of their existence.

"It's all over the place throughout the state," said Jeff Holmes, superintendent in the Germantown School District where — he learned in the course of the interview — students can be ticketed for having a cellphone on school property.

"I can tell you now that we will be looking to work with the village to have the language altered to meet our needs," said Holmes, who joined the district in 2013 and supports the use of cellphones in classrooms if it enhances learning.

"Our high school does a fantastic job of monitoring cellphone use. There has to be an educational reason for them to be in the classroom. And when they're not, they are in their lockers."

Germantown's experience — from an all-out ban to flexibility for teachers to use them when they see fit — is in keeping with the national trend, said Liz Kolb, a clinical associate professor at the University of Michigan who studies the use of technology in education.

Ten or 15 years ago, Kolb said, nearly every school banned them. But as the use of the technology exploded, most schools, about 70%, have moved to more inclusive policies.

"They were fighting a tidal wave as more and more teens were walking into schools with cellphones," said Kolb. "They were spending so much time trying to police it that it was taking away from instructional time."

Over the last decade, cellphones have become almost an extension of the teenage hand. About 88% of teens ages 13 to 17 have or have access to a cell or smartphone, and 24% say they are online "almost constantly," according to a 2015 report by the Pew Research Center. The average age at which children get their first phone has fallen to about 10, says the consumer marketing firm Influence Central.

That has had a profound effect on teaching and learning, according to educators.

"Plenty of studies show that it can be very distracting and can reduce the cognitive capacity in the classroom — students can be distracted just knowing they may be getting a text," said Kolb.

At the same time, she said, "there is a lot of potential for cellphones to ... extend learning to students' real lives, especially for high-needs, low-income students for whom the family cellphone may be the only device they have to navigate the outside world and digital resources."

Policies across the Milwaukee area run the gamut, from bans during school hours with phones banished to lockers, to limited use inside and outside the classroom.

The Wauwatosa School District, for example, loosened its policy this year to allow middle and high school students to keep their phones on them during the day for use at lunchtime, free periods and between classes. It sent a letter to parents saying the previous restrictions had been difficult to enforce "and we want our teachers to focus their energy on teaching and students learning instead of policing phone usage."

Milwaukee Public Schools, which bans the use of phones during the school day, has become more restrictive, at least at some of its schools. Rather than police phones in the classroom, several high schools have begun collecting them at the start of the school day.

"It's doing great things for instruction in our classrooms," said Jesus Santos, principal at South Division High School, where teachers devised an efficient system for collecting and returning hundreds of phones at the beginning and end of each school day.

Still, other schools give teachers the option of incorporating phones where it makes sense.

At Tenor High School, part of the Seeds of Health charter school system, for example, students in the Project Lead the Way program for science, technology, engineering and math use their cellphones to research resources and work on their portfolios if they want to take them between school and home, Executive Director Marcia Spector said.

The Brown Deer School District bars the use of phones during the school day and requires them to be stored in lockers or backpacks. But teachers have some leeway.

Brown Deer Middle School teacher Adam Bold allows them in his seventh- and eighth-grade genius hour where students develop projects — YouTube channels, video games, fundraisers and more — based on their individual interests. They use the cameras to produce videos, pull in editing apps or logo makers, for example.

"By teaching them how to leverage it as a tool, and not just as a social media or gaming device, it empowers them to see the things they can do. It taps into their creativity," said Bold.

The Kewaskum Village Board will take up the cellphone ordinance Monday. Village President Kevin Scheunemann said he's all for order and discipline in schools. But he doesn't want village police officers deciding who should and shouldn't get a ticket for cellphone use. He's willing to give it a try if the decision on ticketing falls to the district and not the officers.

The ordinance, as proposed, would be a kind of three-strikes-you're-out. Strike 1: The phone is confiscated and given back at the end of the day. Strike 2: It's confiscated and the parents have to pick it up. And Strike 3: A ticket is issued, the amount of which has yet to be determined.

"I'm OK with it as long as our police officers are not having to make the decision. Every parent is going to come out and complain, and our officers have way too much to do," said Scheunemann.

"But, I have to be honest. If a student still has a cellphone problem after the second time, they probably deserve a citation."