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Wayland forms cellphone working group; panels and surveys to inform student-device policy
Summary
The committee reviewed the cellphone working group's outreach and schedule: high survey response rates, an administrator panel scheduled Feb. 25, a middle-school panel March 17, and a plan to return policy recommendations April 14.
The School Committee received an update Jan. 27 on the district's working group studying student cellphone and smartphone policy, including survey response totals, scheduled stakeholder panels and a timeline to bring recommendations back to the committee.
Administrators reported unusually high survey participation: several hundred parent/caregiver responses at the elementary and middle-school levels and over 200 responses from high-school families. The district said it will analyze the survey data and review feedback with the working group at a Feb. 4 meeting.
A panel of high-school administrators and district officials will appear Feb. 25 to discuss policy options and implementation strategies; a separate middle-school principals' panel is scheduled for March 17. The working group expects to present recommended policies and practices to the School Committee on April 14.
Committee members raised concerns about survey phrasing and ambiguous terminology, and asked the working group to clarify definitions (for example, "off and away" versus "locked up all day") before finalizing recommendations. One committee member, Aaron (School Committee member), said the district should aim to be proactive: "I really don't want to be behind the 8 ball here, like I want to be a leader in this," referring to state-level attention and peer-district practices.
Administrators said potential policy options being examined include varied enforcement models, peer-district policy comparisons, and the resource implications of any recommended changes. Funding for implementation would be evaluated against available district resources and the FY26 budget context.
Provenance
First related transcript excerpt: "...we will, have all our data analyzed thanks to Lisa Raffrey and our team who does a great job. We're gonna look at all the stakeholders' feedback on Tuesday, Feb. 4..." (Transcript timecode s=3755.115)
Last related transcript excerpt: "We're gonna learn about other working groups. And I think you can learn a lot from peer districts. So I think we're right there, Aaron, in terms of attention to the school committee." (Transcript timecode s=4032.0852)
Ending note
The working group will return survey analysis and recommended policy options for committee review in April; committee members asked for clear definitions in survey reporting and an explicit estimate of any implementation costs.
