Putnam County Director of Schools Corby King said the system has delayed a final decision on a new cell phone policy so that it can get the policy right.
School officials told the School Board at a January Work Session they could implement the policy at spring break. But after initial approvals of the policy, the board decided to take more time. King said the school board met with the Warren County School Board, one of the first to implement a policy restricting electronic device usage.
“They realize there were a few things in the policy that were proposed that they would like to tweak and just kind of clean up a little bit,” King said. “So they just pushed the pause button for a month or two while they had time to do a little more research and study.”
King said the board continues to make progress on the policy and also said he does not view the delay as the board slowing down.
King said the school board has had concerns with the policy, specifically on how it covered other electronic devices like Apple Watches and smart glasses. King said the board is also considering adopting a pouch system along with the cell phone policy.
“There is still a lot of talk about whether we go with a pouch-type system or if we just have students turn them off,” King said. “I’m not sure where that conversation is gonna land yet.”
King said the board will see the revised policy in June’s board meeting.
“Since that will be the first time they see the policy with the changes, it’ll probably be a first reading in June,” King said. “We have a second board meeting at the end of June that is typically the July board meeting, but it occurs in June because we need to close out the fiscal year, and that is an annual thing, so there will be a second board meeting at the end of June and I anticipate that the board will likely pass the policy at that time.”
King said the goal is to have the cell phone policy implemented before the next school year.
