by Hans D. Lassiter, Chief Executive Officer, Irvington Community School Corporation
Greetings, dear neighbors & friends of the East Side! I am pleased to be able to come before you on this platform to share our ideas regarding current issues which affect & influence approaches to & practices of public education in our community! During the next 9 months, we will present an area of interest or dare I say concern, which generates an equal amount of thought and conversation at the dinner table, around the water cooler, in the gym as you work out, or around the television in your den as you enjoy a Colts game! It is my hope that a topic or two will spark a flame for you as the reader, & in turn will encourage & motivate you to become a partner in the realm of education in our community & provoke you into becoming a thought partner with your neighborhood school or the school in which your child(ren) are enrolled to generate innovative solutions to common problems!
The first topic for your reading pleasure is Indiana’s new cell phone in schools’ law, Senate Bill 185, which went into effect on July 1, 2024. In essence, the law bans the use of wireless communication devices such as cell phones, tablets, laptops, and gaming devices in classrooms during instructional time, a noble & well intended gesture designed to redirect, refocus, & reframe the divided attention of our students from the distractions of social media BACK onto the intended purpose of their attendance in school-The pursuit of their right to a free, appropriate public education and the pursuit of personal development through intellectual inquiry. The question that I have for you then, is this: Why is this a problem and subject of so much dismay, student & parent “pushback” & the willful violation of policies designed to increase student time-on-task? The law & locally developed policies to enforce it are good things, right?
Think about it for a moment, and entertain this question: What is it that is so important that requires the need for a telephone to be attached to a student’s right or left hand and ear between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to the extent that teachers cannot teach the required subject matter because their students are texting, in-boxing, posting photos & videos to Facebook & Tik-Tok? Worse, a segment of the student population use said cell phone to plan & participate in more nefarious & salacious activities such as arranging meetups in secluded areas of the campus to participate in planned fights or other contrary activities. Now, before you move on to the next article, hear me out! I recognize the need for parents & families to be able to contact their child during the day and vice-versa to advise of schedule or transportation changes, learn about what is for dinner, or to speak with the teacher or principal about those missing assignments affecting a grade. Overall, then, those are conversations that can be held and concluded in less than 60 seconds. Why then is a telephone a necessary component & accessory of the classroom experience ALL DAY?
As educators across the country grapple with ways to recapture students’ attention in the classroom setting so that the objective of providing a quality educational experience may be accomplished, one would think that the removal of distractions precluding this objective would be applauded, yet in many cases, it is not, and has proven to be an unnecessary cause and source of conflict within the school setting leading to disciplinary sanctions being levied against the student, leading to an unnecessary loss of instructional time should a suspension from class be deemed necessary. All over a sixty second conversation or text exchange, most likely with another student whose attention has also been diverted away from the ABCs of education and onto clicks & likes!
Is it worth it?