BROOKINGS The Brookings School Board will consider policy changes this summer regarding student phone use at the high school. During Monday nights meeting, Superintendent Summer Schultz said staff are reviewing public comments on the existing policy and working to develop a new one for next year.
Currently, student phone use at Brookings High School is prohibited during instructional time. However, students can still use phones in the building before and after school, in the hallways between classes and in the commons area during lunch.
Although the studying, the assessment and final recommendation to the board does have to come from the high school administration, I wanted to be a part of that, Schultz said. I asked to meet with them to pull together all the data that we have received. We received perception data from different groups parent groups, staff groups and teacher groups. We did not do a survey for high school students. It is very difficult to get valid data from them.
Focus group sessions were held to gather student opinions. Schultz said the feedback mostly points to a failure to enforce existing policy.
There was an intentional effort at the beginning. We just struggled, it looks like, with that implementation and enforcement, she said. So we have to understand, we have to really dig into why was that and how can we do better, so that whatever we do recommend is fully enforced.
School Board President Teresa Binkley said no policy is effective if unenforced.
Whatever the policy is or whatever goes in the handbook, it needs to be enforced, Binkley said. I want the high school administrators to know that the board expects them to enforce those policies that we come up with. Thats sort of the bottom line whatever comes.
The state legislature passed a resolution this year encouraging all schools to enact policies limiting student phone use. The resolution said, national studies show that using cellular telephones or other electronic communication devices during instructional time may disrupt and distract from the learning environment, negatively impact test scores, and affect a students long-term ability to retain information.
On Monday, the Sioux Falls School Board voted to prohibit student phone use next year at high schools in the district except during lunchtime. In April, Mitchell announced it would ban student phone use in high school classrooms starting next year. Last year, the Gettysburg School District forbid all students in grades K-12 from using phones and other electronic devices at school.
Schultz said Brookings High School staff will present their new policy to the board this summer.
Those are things that right now the high school administrators are working on, Schultz said. I have told them that we need to bring (the school board) that recommendation for what they want that policy and procedure to be long enough for (the board) to be able to look at it, critique it, potentially take it back and say these are other things we want you to consider and to look at. All of that needs to be done before student handbooks go out.
Last month, the district hosted an online session to educate families on safe social media use. That event was facilitated by SmartSocial, a company that provides digital citizen education and resources. Schultz said based on positive feedback the school will contract with them for additional programming next year.
We have worked out an agreement with that company for staff and parent resource and education programming for next year through some reserve Title II dollars that needed to be spent, she said. That will allow parents to have access to 400 different on-demand areas. Because as teachers and parents, there are times we are looking for something different or we go, wow I think my child might have that (phone) app or might be on that. But we just dont know what we dont know.
In other business Monday night, the school board approved on a 5-0 vote emergency changes to the graduation ceremony policy. Commencement ceremonies in Brookings this year are May 25 at 2 p.m. at Dacotah Bank Center, 824 32nd Ave.
There is a graduation ceremony decoration policy that were putting out. It came because of legislation that just happened, Binkley said. Any Native American learner may wear an eagle feather or eagle plume at that learners graduation ceremony, or an appropriate beaded graduation cap. A learner who has enlisted in the South Dakota National Guard or in a branch of the armed forces may wear to his or her graduation ceremony a sash, stole or other military decoration issued to that learner by the military branch.
In 2018, the state legislature authorized the wearing of eagle feathers for Native American students at high school graduation ceremonies. This year, the legislature expanded that to also include military-issued decorations.
In 2019, a Brookings school official confiscated an eagle feather from a Native American student shortly before commencement. Although the feather was returned in time for the student to wear it on stage while receiving a diploma, then-superintendent Klint Willert issued a public apology and said the district would take steps to prevent that from happening again.
Contact Jay Roe at [email protected].
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