PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Pinellas County students may have to have their phones silenced and out of sight when they return to school in August, should the school board approve proposed changes to district policy.

During a workshop Tuesday, school board members are set to discuss updating the district’s Code of Student Conduct to include stricter rules for cell phone use. The proposed policy states phones, smart watches and earbuds must be turned off or silenced and put away throughout the duration of the school day.

What You Need To Know

  • Proposed changes to Code of Student Conduct would require phones to be off or silenced during classes 

  • Middle school students could have phones during lunch 

  • High school students could have phones during lunch, classroom transitions 

  • SURVEY: How do students, teachers and parents feel?

The proposal is the most strict for elementary school students, but allows middle school students to have phones during lunch and high school students to use phones while transitioning from class to class.

In early February, the Pinellas County School District polled parents, students, school employees and community members to see where they stood on the issue.

A total of 8,255 responses were received for the survey regarding high school cell phone use. 

Twenty percent said they wanted to see phones banned for the entire school day, 34% felt phones should be used before and after school and during lunch, while 38% said students should be free to use phones anywhere but in the classroom during instructional time. Eight percent responded they didn’t agree with any of the options presented.

Reagan Miller has both a middle and high school student enrolled in Pinellas County Schools. She says she’s seen firsthand how attached students can be to their phones and has mixed feelings about the proposed guidelines.

“With the issues we’ve had with school safety, I want to be able to find my kids,” she said. “As far as available during the school day, I would love them to put them away more often and interact with their teachers and their classmates.”

During a Tiger Bay Club forum late last year, Pinellas County Superintendent Kevin Hendrick said he doesn’t believe phones belong in the classroom because being a 1-to-1 district, each student has a laptop assigned to them.

Hendrick stated it’s a discussion about how far the school district is willing to go to police cell phone use. Parents in some cases, he described, are as passionate about phone use as their teenage students.

“I think the challenge is when we call you and say we just took your child’s phone and we’re not giving it back and you have to come pick it up, and you yell at us and scream at us and curse at us… and then what?” he said.

During Tuesday’s discussion, school board members are set to discuss the proposed policy and what consequences should be put in place if enacted.