Fair Use Statement

By Jeffrey P. Haney
Deseret News staff writer

PROVO - How times have changed.

Educators in earlier eras deemed rubber bands, yo-yos and cigarette lighters as nuisances and banned the items from classrooms.

Now, under a new policy embraced last week by Provo City School District's Board of Education, high-tech telecommunication trinkets have been branded "interfering devices" and no longer are allowed to be used during school hours or at school functions.

As an addition to the district's "Safe Schools" policy, district leaders have outlawed any "device or object (that) interferes with the educational process."

Such devices include lasers, laser pens, radios, portable compact-disc players, portable telephones, pagers or other electronic equipment that disrupt classes, according to the policy.

Provo leaders said the policy was patterned after other Utah districts who have added pagers and cell phones to lists of items banned from campus.

Previously, school administrators voiced concern that the devices were being used for drug dealing. Recently, though, parents have defended pagers and cell phones in schools, saying they give families constant access to their children.

So what happens to students who want to strap a beeper on a belt before grabbing a backpack and heading out the door to school? Not much, really.

District officials want principals and teachers to take away the portable phones and pagers if they spot them being used in classes. Students using cell phones to call parents during lunch time likely wouldn't be disciplined, officials said.

But if a pager rang out in English? The device would then be given to parents at the end of the day or as soon as can be arranged.

"This allows personnel to take away devices that may get in the way of the educational process," said Terry Shoemaker, the district's human resources director. "The idea behind this is administrators would take these things and give them to parents."

But there are harsher penalties for students who uses one of the banned devices to injure a classmate - such as flashing a laser light in a locker partner's eyes.

Such hi-jinx are grounds for a 10-day suspension.

A student who repeatedly uses the electronic goods to injure another student could be referred to an alternative school for the remainder of the semester, according to the policy.

Alpine and Nebo School District both have similar policies against student use of cell phones, pagers, pen lights and hand-held electronic video games.

Provo's policy also was implemented to protect students, said Sam Jarman, a district administrator. CD players, radios, phones and pagers could easily be taken from lockers or backpacks.