Kaiser High School may restrict cell phone use
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
HAWAI'I KAI — For Kaiser High School senior Dianna Chung, her cell phone is her lifeline to friends and family.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
If you need to reach Chung, just dial her cell phone. Don't call while she's in class, though; Chung says she won't answer.
If Kaiser High's School Community Based Management group approves the proposed policy on cell phones, students will be allowed to use the devices only during recess and lunch.
"If my cell phone rings when I'm in class, I just don't answer it," Chung said. "I usually have it on vibrate, so it doesn't ring."
Chung is among hundreds of Kaiser students who have a cell phone, and many take issue with the school's proposed ban on cell phone use during the bulk of the school day.
Students say they prefer a more flexible approach in which students would agree to use their cell phones wisely and use peer pressure to keep everyone in line.
"I don't think students should be kept from using their cell phones because if there's an emergency or a family problem, we need to know immediately," Chung said.
Ashley Fukutomi, a Kaiser senior, said the onus should be on the students for self-policing, instead of resorting to a school ban.
The state Department of Education has no policy specifically addressing cell phone use by students on campus, but a number of Hawai'i public schools, particularly those in the upper grades, have stringent policies aimed at keeping students' cell phones from interfering with their studies.
Consequences range from in-school detention to having their phones taken away for a day, a week or, sometimes, the semester.
The proposed policy: The policy being considered at Kaiser High School would ban the use of personal telecommunication devices during instructional hours. Consequences on the first offense would be a warning; second offense, confiscation of the device, which can be picked up at the end of the school day; and on the third offense, the school would notify the student's parents to arrange to have the device picked up. Students would be able to use cell phones during lunch and recess. What's next: Kaiser's School Community Based Management group is scheduled to discuss the proposal and take a vote at its meeting at 5:30 p.m. today in the school library.
At Kaiser, it had been left up to teachers to decide.
At a glance
But with the advent of camera phones and the complexities they pose, Kaiser officials decided that the school's rules need to be broadened and to include penalties.
Officials were already concerned over the potential for cheating by students using the cell phone to text-message answers to one another.
Now, new camera phones could enable a student to take a picture of a test and send it to other students, officials say. Schools also are concerned that new cell phone technology could enable students to take pictures of other students in restrooms or the locker room and then post those pictures on the Internet.
The main reason administrators say there's a need for a cell phone policy, though, is the disturbance a ringing phone creates in the classroom.
Teachers say classroom discussions are disrupted by the ringing and, sometimes, answering of cell phones. Entire class discussions can be halted, said Ben Lane, a Kaiser High School English teacher for nine years. Other times, the phone can ring once and the savvy student will turn off the phone and wait until class is over to retrieve the call, Lane said.
"Most of the kids I have put their phones away," Lane said. "But the students with behavior problems also have problems with their phones. They play with it in class, with the games, the text messaging or the phone itself."
For two months, Kaiser's School Community Based Management group, made up of administrators, teachers, students and members of the community, have been drafting a policy that would prohibit cell phone use during class and outline consequences for violating that policy. At its meeting today, the SCBM is expected to discuss and vote on the proposed policy, said Carl Makino, an SCBM member.
The policy would allow cell phone use during lunch hour and recess.
"We recognize that it won't work for a total ban from the beginning of school to the end because some parents need to reach their children," said Gayle Sugita, Kaiser High School principal.
The cell phone has become as much a part of the teenage experience as a backpack and blue jeans, with an estimated 55 percent of 15- to 18-year-olds nationwide owning one, according to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association based in Washington, D.C.
The phones get plenty of use — Chung estimates she makes about 20 calls a day — and features such as games and text messaging boost usage even more.
Before the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, more schools had policies that banned cell phones, according to the cellular association. Students at that Colorado school had used their cell phones to call police when two of their classmates gunned down 12 other students and a teacher.
More recently, California and Maryland have joined a handful of states in repealing prohibitions on cell phones on high school campuses passed when they were seen primarily as a tool for drug- and gang-related activity. The majority of the states leave individual regulation to school districts.
At Mililani High School, the reasoning behind its policy on cell phone use is simple:
"Students are supposed to be here on campus for an education, not on the cell phone," said principal Robert Ginlack.
Cell phones are not permitted to be on and used during the school day and if a student is caught using one, the first offense is after-school detention, Ginlack said. On the second offense, the principal keeps the phone until the end of the school year. Mililani's policy has been in effect for about five years.
"It's very rare for us to have to confiscate it," Ginlack said. "We've stated the policy and it's in their planners and gone over at the beginning of the year."
The cell phone policy at Lana'i Elementary and High School is just as stringent. Cell phones cannot be taken out and used at any time during the school day from 8 a.m. until the last bell rings after 2 p.m.
If a student is caught using a cell phone during the school day, the phone is confiscated by the school's vice principal and kept for a week. The second offense calls for confiscation for one month and the third time, it's for the rest of the school year, said principal Pierce Myers.
Though the policy has been in place for at least five years, "we've seldom had to confiscate a cell phone," Myers said. "It's seldom an issue for us"
Mallory Bagoyo, a 15-year-old sophomore, recently tested the school's policy. Her cell phone was confiscated for a week after she was seen holding it in her hand.
Her parents weren't too angry with her, but they didn't want to see it happen again, said Bagoyo, who mainly uses the cell phone her parents gave her two years ago to send text messages to her friends to make arrangements for weekend get-togethers.
"I learned my lesson," Bagoyo said. "The cell phone wasn't even on. I had it in my hand. But the rule is no cell phones on campus."
At Kaiser High, Chung is one of many students and parents who believe there are times and places where a cell phone on campus is not only acceptable but necessary.
"I think the cell phone helps you become responsible because it is a tool," Chung said. "It can teach you how to budget your finances by forcing you to keep track of your minutes. And it helps you separate your personal life from your school life."
Makino, the Kaiser High SCBM member, noted that drafting the school's proposed policy has been difficult.
"Some parents pleaded that a ban would create a hardship on them when they're trying to make arrangements with their child," he said. "However, most parents we polled were in favor of some ban on cell phones."
Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.
