All Hamilton County Schools students will now be prohibited from using cell phones and other personal devices during the school day.
Under the new policy, students’ devices must be turned off or on airplane mode from bell to bell and stored in an assigned locker, backpack, purse, vehicle or a location designated by school administration.
The ban includes use during class time, lunch periods, transitions between classes and in bathrooms.
It takes effect Oct. 1.
The new policy includes exceptions for certain students with medical conditions or disabilities, as well as in the event of emergency. Students are only allowed to use devices during the school day with explicit administrative approval in cases where school-provided technology is insufficient or impractical.
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The Hamilton County school board approved the new cell phone policy 7-4 on Aug. 21. The no votes came from the four Democratic members of the board: Jill Black, Ben Connor, Karitsa Jones and Jackie Anderson-Thomas.
One point of contention within the policy was its language requiring schools to post reminders in common areas and classrooms.
School board member Larry Grohn, R-East Ridge, said he saw no reason to post the new policy because nobody was going to read it. He made a motion to strike that language from the new policy.
As a former high school teacher, Felice Hadden, R-Ooltewah, said it would be good to have the new policy posted because it would help enforce it.
Grohn’s motion failed with eight board members voting against his proposed change.
The new policy also holds school administration responsible for the enforcement of the policy. Failing to adhere to the policy could result in an administrative review by the superintendent and could be reflected in a principal’s annual performance evaluation.
Connor raised concerns around that language and noted that other district policies around student behavior do not reference potential retaliation for lack of enforcement.
“It’s a little bit of a witch hunt if you will,” he said. “I see in my mind pitchforks and going after the Frankenstein monster when we don’t do it anywhere else, and I definitely don’t want to set the precedent of four page policies because we have to list all the ways we’re going to go after people if they don’t follow it. A little aggressive, a little too much.”
Jones and Anderson-Thomas both said parents needed to be held responsible for their children’s cell phone use.
“You can post it all day long, run it across the TV, put it in TikTok, but if a child brings the phone to school and a parent tells them it’s OK, then what are we doing? Wasting our staff’s time,” Jones said. “I’m not voting for this thing because I’m just tired of talking about cell phones.”
School board members have repeatedly brought up cell phone use since the existing policy was put in place in July 2023. That policy allowed each high school to choose whether to allow students to use phones in designated areas during lunch, and principals, as well as others they designated, could give students permission to use the devices for a class assignment.
Hamilton County’s new policy goes beyond what the Tennessee state legislature required in the law it passed this spring, which banned cell phone use during instructional time.
Contact education reporter Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.