DECATUR, Ga. — The City Schools of Decatur Board of Education will discuss their version of a plan to ban cellphones and other electronic devices in kindergarten through eighth grade.
As proposed, the Decatur school board said it believes its students will achieve more academically without “distraction due to use of personal electronic devices.”
The policy discussion comes in response to the requirements of Georgia’s Distraction-Free Education Act.
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Under the law, which passed earlier this year, schools have until January to create and implement a policy to limit or otherwise restrict the use of cellphones, tablets and other technologically distracting devices in K-8 classrooms.
“The Board of Education intends to promote a distraction-free learning environment, which means a learning environment where access to personal electronic devices is restricted to minimize distractions, improve academic outcomes, and increase meaningful interactions and focused learning experiences,” the board documents say.
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According to documents from the Decatur BOE, the policy bars students in grades K-8 from having access to “personal electronic devices while on school premises during school hours, including but not limited to cell phones, smartwatches, smartglasses, tablets, e-readers, headphones, earbuds, and other devices with functionalities such as wireless communication, internet access, messaging, video recording, gaming, social media access, or data transmission during school hours.”
Students who violate the policy, once in effect, would face progressively increasing consequences for each violation during school hours, as outlined in the district’s Student Code of Conduct.
The policy would also apply to school activities like field trips, athletic events or extracurricular activities, though there are exceptions for certain students.
For those with “Individualized Education Plan (IEP), Section 504 Plan, or medical plan explicitly mandates the use of a personal electronic device shall be permitted access to the device as necessary to fulfill the requirements of the respective program or plan.”
Parents would have to otherwise reach their children during school hours by contacting the front office, rather than directly messaging or calling students via phone or messaging them on a device or app.
Details of how the phones would be stored, or if there would be specific ways the district planned to limit phone use, were not immediately available.
The policy was scheduled for discussion at Tuesday evening’s board meeting.
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