As I stated in earlier posts we altered our cell phone policy this year. We allow students to use their cell phones in between classes and in the cafeteria during their lunch period. We also changed our procedures in that we do not require teachers to confiscate the student's phone when there is a violation of the cell phone policy. We did this to try and eliminate the power struggles that can erupt in the classroom between the teacher and a student when a teacher asks for a student's phone. If a student violates the cell phone policy the teacher just has to write up a conduct report. If they want, the teacher can confiscate the student's cell phone, but they do not have to.

The other day I had one of our secretaries run the reports for cell phone violations for 9/1/2008 - 12/23/2008 and for 9/1/2009 - 12/23/2009. I wanted to compare the data to see if there has been any change in the number of violations this year compared to last year.

9/1/2008 - 12/23/2008 Number of Cell Phone Violations          40*

9/1/2009 - 12/23/2009 Number of Cell Phone Violations         30

The reason I have an asterisk next to the number 40 above is because last year was my first year in the district and I did not code everything properly and midway through the year we updated and changed our codes so we were all on the same page (administrators and secretaries). Basically what it means is that the 40 violations is actually an estimated number and is in reality much higher. Additionally, this year we have recorded every cell phone violation because we knew we wanted to monitor the violations. In all honesty I expected the violations for this school year to be higher. One of the reasons I expected higher numbers was because teachers do not have to confiscate the student's cell phone when the student violates the policy. I thought this change in procedure would result in more discipline reports. Not the case.

The school I work in is a high school with about 1050 students. It is middle to upper-middle class neighborhood. Almost all of our students carry a cell phone and an iPod of some sort. Overall we have really great students. While walking to do an observation today I passed a few hundred students and not one of them had their cell phone out even though they can use them between classes. The cell phones are a non-issue. The other two administrators and I really wrestled with changing the policy. We definitely thought there would be more problems than there has been so far.