Sunday, August 15, 2004
Schools Back Off Cell-Phone Ban
By Gabriela C. Guzman
Journal Staff Writer
For now, it appears
that Santa Fe Public Schools officials have backed off a plan calling for
a ban on cell phones from district high schools.
Instead, the district will revert to the district's code
of conduct, said district superintendent Gloria Rendón through a
spokeswoman.
At the July 20 school board meeting, Rendón recommended
stiffer penalties for inappropriate cell phone use rather than a ban, but
the issue was tabled.
During a school board retreat earlier this month, board
members debated what the stiffer penalties should include, said board president
Donita Sena.
A vote on the stiffer penalties by the board will not
take place until later in the school year.
Sena said she could not vote for banning cell phones
from the high schools because, as a parent, she said she understands the
need to reach a child after school.
While the code of conduct outlines in some detail the
consequences for students of improper cell phone use, which range from a
warning to expulsion, adults are exempt from the policy.
"It's unfair," said Shanna Jameson, a Santa Fe High School
sophomore.
Last year, when Jameson's grandmother was taken to the
hospital for her advancing cancer, her mother only got a busy signal when
she called the school to pull her daughter out of class.
Jameson's mother finally reached Shanna by calling her
cell phone, but a teacher confiscated the phone during their conversation.
"She was really upset," Jameson said of her mother. "They
took it away and hung up on her."
While Jameson's experience is one of those instances
when a cell phone comes in handy, she and other students say they have had
teachers who interrupt class to take less-important calls.
Angel Quintana, a senior at Capital High School, said
she remembers a teacher taking a cell phone call that lasted about 20 minutes.
"Maybe that's an area we need to look into," Sena said,
about creating a clearer cell phone use policy for teachers.
Lisa Goldman, a program specialist at Capital, said she
hates cell phones and only has one because she lives off the electrical
grid in Pecos.
Not only have the phones disrupted her class, but she
said they add to the communication difficulties that already exist between
teenagers and adults.
According to the district's code, beepers, pagers and
cell phones cannot be visible or switched on during schools hours or on
high school grounds.
It would have been a futile gesture to ban cell phones,
said Michael Bugeja, a media professor at Iowa State University.
Marketing for cell phones has sold the idea to young
people that having a cell phone is not a matter of convenience, but a necessity,
Bugeja said.
"Society keeps telling students they need cell phones,
they must have cell phones, they cannot be without cell phones," he wrote
in an e-mail.
Bugeja, who has written a book about communication, blames
cell phones for creating the largest generational gap since the Vietnam War.
Even with a ban in place, students would find a way to
use cell phones while at school, Bugeja said, and it's better to create
designated zones where students can use their cell phones in school.
Deeming its cell phone ban unenforceable, Albuquerque
Public Schools rescinded the ban four years ago.
Now students can bring the phones to school, as long as
they do not interrupt class, said Rigo Chavez, an APS spokesman.
Once a student is discovered using a cell phone during
class, it is usually confiscated until the end of class for a first offense,
or until the end of the day for subsequent offenses.
During the last academic school year, there were incidents
of APS students cheating on tests by text-messaging each other the answers.
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