Pearl Lorentzen
For South Peace News
Area school divisions are making progress on plans to deal with cellphones in schools.
As reported earlier Alberta’s Minister of Education Demetrios Nicolaides ordered all school divisions to not allow students access to personal mobile devices during teaching times except for medical or special learning needs.
The schools are to implement this at the start of the 2024-25 year, but school divisions have until Jan. 2025 to complete their policies and procedures, says a National Post article.
In that article, Alberta Teacher’s Association President Jason Schilling told The Canadian Press, “I find the discrepancy between the two dates bizarre.”
However, local school divisions are taking steps to implement the changes in the fall.
HPSD
On August 20, 2024, High Prairie School Division board of trustees passed a cellphone procedure and approved a one-page information sheet.
These rules apply to students and staff.
Both are available in the meeting agenda. The procedure is on Pages 20 and 21. The information sheet is on Pages 22 and 23.
The new rules includes escalating consequences for having a cellphone during teaching time.
These range from a verbal warning (first instance) to being sent to the principal’s office and it being a “disciplinary issue,” on four or more instances.
Division-wide cellphone rules are “a long time coming,” said Murray Murran, HPSD superintendent. The schools already had rules. The division looked through these and “picked the best of the best,” he added, to make the new rules.
The rules were emailed to parents before school starts and are on the website.
“I think this is a really positive move for us,” said Joy McGregor, HPSD chair and Slave Lake trustee. Some parents might be unhappy, but you can’t please everyone, she added.
Catholic schools
On August 20, Jo-Anne Lanctot, superintendent for Living Waters Catholic School Division said that “our Living Waters schools and admin are in the process of drafting their protocols to meet the ministerial order requirements with the restrictions, and these will be communicated out to our school community prior to school start-up.”
In Slave Lake, Living Waters runs St. Mary of the Lake Catholic School and St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Academy.
Smith School
In July, Aspen View School Division, which runs Smith School, in the Hamlet of Smith, sent a letter to parents with some highlights of the ministerial order and how Aspen View would implement it.
On August 20, Ross Hunter, Aspen View Communications Officer, said, “We have a draft administrative procedure being reviewed by school administrators later this week. We anticipate that further stakeholder engagement will follow.”
Students return to Smith School on August 29.
Northlands
Back in July, Northland School Division said that it was making plans on how to deal with cellphones in the classroom in the fall.