Yukon board outlines "bell-to-bell" phone rule, sets classroom penalties and monitoring plan

The Yukon Public Schools board on an operational item Thursday heard staff explain how the district will implement a state law banning student use of personal electronic devices from the first instructional bell until the last. District staff member Adam explained the implementation plan, saying, "Kids are allowed to have their cell phones on them. They just can't use them unless it's for a medical situation, or in an emergency." He described a three-step discipline approach: first infraction — the student turns the device into the office and serves a day of lunch detention and may retrieve the device at the end of the day; second infraction — the device is retained and a parent or guardian must pick it up during school hours while the student serves lunch detention or in-school intervention; third infraction — out-of-school suspension (OSS), with staff able to raise consequences where deemed appropriate. The district is preparing physical lockers in main offices to secure devices. "Today, I was delivered, acrylic lockers, 20 20 little locker doors that have keys on them that'll be in the main office at the middle school, high school, the 3 intermediates," Adam said, and staff said the office key will be retained centrally to avoid teachers handling phones. Staff emphasized exemptions explicitly stated in the law: medical situations, individualized education program (IEP) needs and assistive technology. Adam noted the district will treat a broad set of items as covered by the law, including AirPods, smartwatches, gaming consoles and other devices that can transmit messages. The board asked several operational questions: whether extracurricular activities are covered (staff said they are not), how career-technical center time would be handled (staff said Yukon will treat a student's last instructional bell at Yukon as the end of the school day and career-tech centers would enforce their own rules), and how bus travel to events is considered if a student's instructional day has ended. Adam said these edge cases will be monitored and reviewed with principals. Staff also described a pilot for in-school interventions using locking pouches in the district's in-school intervention (ISI) rooms: "We are going to be piloting the Yonder pouch program," Adam said, explaining the pouches lock and require a magnet tool to open. He said the district will not place devices in pouches for every ISI placement immediately but will try them with selected students. District administrators told the board the policy will be included in the student/parent handbook on the agenda and that they plan to send messaging to families immediately. A board member asked for implementation data at the next meeting; staff said they will "pull the data off of PowerSchool" and present both statistics and anecdotal feedback at the following board meeting. No change in district policy language or ordinance citation was presented in the meeting minutes beyond staff references to the state law; staff described the legal standard verbally as "first instructional bell to the last instructional bell."