Board considers issuing school-managed phones and soft-phone apps to avoid staff sharing personal numbers

The district's technology lead presented the board with options for how staff should handle out-of-hours and off-site communications and recommended school-managed devices for key roles.

Reed (information-technology lead) told trustees there are three basic models: personal-device reimbursement, soft-phone apps that route calls through the school number (UniFi Talk), and purpose-built two-way messaging platforms (ReachMyTeach). He explained tradeoffs including transferability, recording, inability to receive inbound parent calls on some platforms, lack of SMS on some systems, and E911-location inaccuracies for soft-phone apps. "School staff and administrators should not be required to share their personal phone numbers with parents or guardians nor put their personal phones at risk," Reed said.

Reed recommended issuing managed school phones to the building administrator, head custodian, administrative assistant and for off-site/field-trip medkit phones; school ownership would allow remote wiping, centralized logs and temporary reassignment during staff absences. He described UniFi Talk as a workable soft-phone for a small number of users but limited (voice only, no texting) and recommended a school-owned phone where full functionality and record-keeping are required.

Board members discussed budgeting options and whether to keep a monthly reimbursement line in policy (DKC) or shift to school-issued devices for privacy and records control. The board asked the policy committee to include the cell-phone discussion in its June meeting so the board could consider revised policy language and budget implications at the June 16 meeting.

Next steps: policy committee to review phone policy and budget implications and return recommended language and cost estimates at the June policy meeting and June 16 board meeting.