Board Irked Over High School Cell Phone Pilot

LancasterOnline has a story this morning on Octorara High School's new student cell phone policy pilot and the disappointment expressed by school board members they weren't consulted BEFORE the pilot began.

The pilot policy, posted here on Parkesburg Today a couple of days ago, moves away from the school's zero-tolerance cell phone policy toward allowing students to use their smart phones between periods and during lunch for non-verbal purposes.

The Money Quote comes from High School Principal Scott Rohrer:

"This is a new era. Students have access to [smartphones]. It's amazing what you can use cellphones for. They're minicomputers. The short end of it is to see if we can steer this in a more positive way. I see more positives than negatives so far this year"

Two weeks into the school year, high school administrators report a good response from the students saying they would pull the stop the pilot immediately if issues show up.  They intend to evaluate the pilot at the end of the first marking period.

Meanwhile school board members were more than a little put off that no one told them about the cell phone pilot ahead of time.  Said board member Bob Hume of Parkesburg pointedly during Monday's debate:

"If we make a change, we have a policy committee, and they make a thorough investigation.  There might even be a few drawbacks to (the pilot policy)."

Here's the entire article written by local reporter Debbie Wygent on LancasterOnline.

Click here to read the back and forth comments made by board members at Monday evening's board work session.