The Atlantic School Board will leave it up to the Administrators for each of the District’s Schools to determine what their cell phone policies for students and teachers will be. Discussion on the subject lasted for about 15-minutes.

The decision not to have a “Blanket policy” for all the district’s buildings they said is really not necessary, for several reasons. Among them, each school in the district already has a handbook spelling out the policy for students, and how those policies will be enforced.

Schuler Principal James Northwick said “As we’re thinking about cell phone policies, and we have One-to-One computers, I question what a kid’s gonna do on a computer that they can’t do on a cell phone or vice-versa.” It was pointed out that those 1:1 laptops have the capability to send text messages to phones, and much more. Northwick said with regard to cell phones, if they take them away from students at the start of the school day, they might as well take away the laptops, too. That, he said, “Would be a huge step back.”

School Board President Josh McLaren, who is also a Cass County Sheriff’s Deputy, said policing cell phones would be as fruitless as stopping everyone who travels more than 55 miles per hour on Highway 6 between Atlantic and Wiota. McLaren said they don’t want to become “Cell phone cops.” He said a lot of the concerns from comments people have made on social media, is that cell phones should not be used in the classroom. That’s already a rule in the student handbook.

Board member Kristy Pellet, speaking with regard to students’ personal responsibility, said she’s concerned if the students’ phone is taken away for eight-hours per day, the first thing they’ll do when they get in their vehicles, is to be looking at and sending text messages, while they’re driving. “Allowing our administrators to set up a policy that works for their building, is what’s important,” she said. None of the high school teachers, she said have ever mentioned cell phones are a problem in the classroom. She said it needs to be made clear at the beginning of the school year, that cell phones are not to be used in the classroom, for anything other than teacher approved educational purposes.

Assistant High School Principal Matt Alexander backed-up that assertion, saying that that had gone from 127 student referrals to the High School principal’s official six-years ago, with regard to the use of electronic devices, to 38 students last year. Alexander said “We are improving. [But] Is there more room for improvement? Absolutely.”

School Board member Dr. Keith Swanson summed-up the opinion of the Board “I get the feeling the Board wants to leave this up to the administrators, for the administrators to make a rule for their school, to say what’s going on in their school, and then enforce it.”