Clinton board debates cell-phone policy for grades 4–8, defers final approval to August

Trustees at the Clinton School District meeting on July 21 discussed a proposed cell-phone policy (policy 36-30) that would require students in grades 4 through 8 to place personal phones in classroom lockboxes for the school day, with limited exceptions for athletics, field trips and bus travel.

The board’s staff presenter (Staff member, S3) said the policy would put phones “away for the day,” with lockboxes assigned so students place devices in the morning and retrieve them at dismissal. She described a management approach for field trips, athletic events and situations where students need phones on buses or when a parent will pick a student up after an event.

The measure was presented as a package of classroom-management steps and safety measures; S3 explained the district purchased lockboxes and proposed handbook language to make the exceptions explicit. “Students leaving campus for athletics and academic field trips will be able to take them,” S3 said, noting teachers would retain discretion to allow phones for instructional activities.

Board members pressed for precise exception language. The chair (Chair, S2) and other trustees said they wanted the policy text to explicitly list field trips and athletics as allowable circumstances rather than rely on ad-hoc exceptions. Trustees asked staff to draft one or two sentences clarifying allowable exceptions and to place that language into both the policy and the student handbook for the board to review.

Because the final wording of the exceptions was not yet included in the draft, the board agreed not to approve policy 36-30 at the meeting and instead deferred final action to the August meeting so trustees could review the revised language alongside the updated handbook.

The policy conversation was procedural and did not include a formal vote on adoption; staff will circulate suggested language to trustees before the next meeting.