The sounds of hungry students and banging lunch trays could soon be punctuated with hundreds of ringing cell phones if a resolution put before the Montgomery County school board Tuesday evening is met with approval.
The county would be the first in the region to allow high schoolers to check in with parents and friends during the lunch hour. Currently, students are allowed to have cell phones on campus, but they must be turned off at all times during the school day.
Student board member Quratul-Ann Malik proposed the resolution earlier in the month, responding to her 44,000 high school constituents. The school board on Tuesday will discuss whether to support it, and then to send it to Superintendent Jerry Weast for further review and a final decision.
The use of mobile devices during lunch “does not harm or interfere with” education, Malik wrote in her argument for changing the policy. And it would allow for “convenient communications with parents to students and students to parents.”
The issue has created enough of a stir in the schools that the most viable candidates campaigning for next year’s student board member are running on a pro-cell-phone-at-lunchtime platform.
Some parents need more convincing.
Pat O’Neill, a 10-year board member and mother of a recent graduate, said the main issue was ensuring class time free of distractions and without the worry of text-message cheating.
“We’ve heard quite a bit from teachers who are concerned that if they’re allowed on at lunch, they might remain on into the next class,” O’Neill said.
She conceded, however, that for the purpose of coordinating schedules or figuring out where your child would be after school, a new policy could be beneficial.
Consultants from National School Safety and Security Services recently said they opposed the idea.
Students have used phones to text upsetting messages to other students, to cheat and to spread rumors, their article said. Teachers become “cell phone police” instead of instructors.
If school boards allow cell phones, the consultants wrote, “they should acknowledge that convenience and public pressure, not school safety, are the real reasons typically driving such decisions.”
