Burner phones, calculators and 3-D printed devices are some of the measures students take to avoid losing access to their cell phones under Green Hope High School’s cell phone policy, where students place their phones inside a phone caddy; however, starting on Monday, Nov. 17, Green Hope is implementing a new cell phone practice to comply with North Carolina law and Wake County Public Schools directive. The new policy includes provisions that deal with the confiscation of phones, off-campus lunch passes and parking passes.
The cell phone policy is split into three levels, and it still revolves around the use of the phone caddy; however, the policy provides additional enforcement to the use of the phone caddy. The first level is “classroom warning.” A similar provision exists under the old policy, where if a student does not place their phone in the caddy, a warning is issued by the teacher towards the student. If the student still does not place his or her phone in the caddy, parents are contacted.
Continued non-compliance with placing the cell phone in the caddy leads to an administrative confiscation of the device. Mr. Bollhoefer, one of Green Hope High School’s administrators, explains, “We will come [to the classroom] and we have determined that instead of just taking the phone, we will put it in a manila envelope in front of the student, put their name on it and then we bring it back down [to the front office] and we actually have a system where we’re storing them.” The student, at the end of the day, comes and picks up the phone from the front office. If administrators confiscate the phone a second time, parents, instead of the students, pick up the phone at the end of the day…