Brick School Board Approves Cell Phone Prohibition in Buildings, Buses

Brick Township High School. (Photo: Shorebeat)

The Brick Township Board of Education has unanimously voted in favor of implementing new policies and regulations that effectively ban the use of mobile devices in school buildings and on school buses, with plans to integrate the rules into the official student handbook in the near future.

Though the matter had initially been expected to draw controversy, just one resident offered comment at last week’s board meeting, speaking in support of the measure.

“As a parent, I’ve seen the positives and the negatives of technology,” said Kristen Stirtz, the parent of a middle school student. “And to be honest, I can sometimes be viewed as an ‘uncool mom’ because I have very strict monitoring on my son’s cell phone. They are a constant source of distraction, pulling students away from instruction, disrupting lessons, and interfering with what our teachers are working hard to provide.”

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Under the policy adopted Sept. 18, students “are prohibited from using an electronic communication device anywhere on school grounds during the school day,” including before and after school programs, during any co-curricular activities; and on school buses. The policy also places prohibitions on recording activities in school in any location where there is an “expectation of privacy,” such as a restroom, locker room, shower area, or any other area where any person is removing or changing clothes.

Students are “encouraged not to bring electronic communication devices to school,” but may still choose to do so with restrictions. If a student chooses to bring a device to school, the policy calls for it to be turned off by the student and passcode protected to prevent any unauthorized use of the device. The electronic communication device “shall remain in the student’s backpack/book bag or locker during the school day when its use is not authorized.”

Mobile phone. (Credit: Hanna Vaknin/ Flickr)

Superintendent Thomas Farrell said the policy was the subject of intensive research for more than a year and had been piloted at Veterans Memorial Middle School and Brick Township High School before staff recommended it for the entire district.

“The regulation that accompanies this has been gone-through with the building administrators over the last year,” he said. “They all have guidelines. It is a progressive discipline policy and it is a work in progress. But this has been something Brick has taken a year [to do], and wasn’t rushed.”

The policy statement that accompanied the new regulations said that the school board “believes students and/or school staff members should not be subject to having a video or audio recording taken of any students or school staff members for any purpose without the consent of the student, the student’s parent, and/or the school staff member.”

It continues: “”In addition to protecting the privacy rights of students and school staff members, the board recognizes such recordings can be disruptive to the educational program,” the policy continued. “In addition, inappropriate recordings of educational material, student assessment instruments, and/or student assessment reviews can be used to compromise the integrity of the district’s educational program or lead to academic dishonesty in the event such recordings are stored and/or transmitted to other students.”

The board voted unanimously to approve the policy. Board members Frances DiBenedictis said she saw its benefits personally when it was applied at her child’s school.

“You could definitely see – especially on the bus with all of the videos of bullying, fighting and chaos – that it wasn’t happening as much because the students weren’t allowed to have the phones,” she said. “Honestly, as a parent, I think this is a great, and as Dr. Farrell said, it wasn’t rushed.”

The policy and regulations can be read below: