The Crookston School District held a cell phone policy meeting on Thursday afternoon at the Crookston High School Auditorium.
The State of Minnesota is requiring school districts to have a cell phone policy in place by March 2025, and the Crookston School District would like to have one in place before the school year starts and is holding two community input meetings to hear from parents and students.
The meeting on Thursday was a small crowd but had good input from those in attendance.
Everyone in attendance seemed to be in favor of some kind of restrictions on cell phones in the classroom. One parent who spoke was Jodi Ramberg, and she was in favor of no cell phones in school. “I think the evidence is clear that distraction is a huge issue. Mental health is a huge issue among our students,” said Ramberg. “The evidence is clear as well that having smartphones, having cell phones in schools contributes to that, and the best practice way around that is to have a policy banning cell phone use throughout the day.”
Ramberg said she found information on awayfortheday.org that lays out sample policies, research, and problem-solving to help school administration implement policies to get students off their phones throughout the day.
Erik Elliingson was also in attendance and gave his thoughts regarding his expertise after dealing with technology in the armed forces. “I think it should be an in classroom ban completely for the fact that teachers need to teach. We need to make sure distractions are limited, not only for the teacher but for the students and surrounding students,” said Ellingson. “However, with the rest of their time on the school grounds, I would say let them have access. Teachers may require access to a cell phone for a project or for a fun set of games. For the teacher, there are trivia games that can be set up. If you can make the school day fun with a little use of the cell phone and for the safety of some parents needing to know where their child is, I say that is 100 percent what the school should allow.”
Ellingson said he has seen people bring cell phones into secure zones and get federally charged. “I have dealt with, at a Federal level, people bringing in cell phones into a secure zone and then having to be charged federally. That hurts greatly, and if you start at a young age where you bring a phone in, you are going to be hammered. It’s consequences, right,” said Ellingson. “If we bring up these consequences at an early age, but also allow them to have access in certain areas, hopefully, there won’t be that need to have that distraction. The day that one of these students gets in a situation and needs that phone and the school and school board has denied that. The school/school board is going to have to answer that, and unfortunately, it will be a horrific situation, which I don’t want to see the community of Crookston or the high school go through at all.”
Superintendent Randy Bergquist said it was a good meeting. “People had an opportunity to talk, and we obviously have people on both sides of the aisle. We have people that want to get rid of it completely and we have people that want their child to have a cell phone in case there is an emergency,” said Bergquist. “Teachers and staff will give input as well. We will be sending out a survey to teachers and give input. I have my own personal feelings as well, but I think it is great the school board is getting input from community members and parents to find out what they want.”
The goal is to have a policy in place by the start of the school year. “The next school board meeting is Monday, August 26 at 5:00 p.m., and I would like to have the board establish a policy,” said Bergquist. “The school board and administration will take all the feedback we received, and we will talk about it sometime in the next couple of weeks and put some sort of policy together. Hopefully, the board will make a decision on Monday, August 26, so we can start at the beginning of the school year.”
The next Crookston School District Cell Phone Policy input meeting will be Wednesday, August 7 at 7:00 p.m. at the Crookston High School Auditorium.
