Education

ST. PAUL (AP) ― Richfield High School once had a total ban on cell phones.

But Principal Jill Johnson said she started hearing confessions from teachers that they were just as guilty of sneaking a call during the day as their students.

Now, Richfield schools allow cell phones, you just can't use them during class. Johnson said that gives students a chance to show responsibility.

Students and staff at several schools say blanket bans are unenforceable. And it's that sentiment that has many Minnesota schools tweaking their policies -- not in defeat, but to better align with reality.

"What seems like the easy thing to do is to just say 'no' to it. 'Put it away, I don't ever want to see those cell phones in school,' Johnson said while looking at her own two cell phones at her desk. "But the reality is they're such a fundamental in which we exist that not having them is so awkward it doesn't make sense."

Jennifer Tuuri's first period yearbook class was a case in point. As Tuuri posted new grades, students seemed to make little attempt to hide their phones. Maybe it's because yearbook is more relaxed than the usual lecture-style classes.

"I'm texting my friend who's supposed to be here to ask why she's not," senior Sarah Flynn acknowledged. Flynn added that if she were trying to text on the sly, she could do it easily.

"It's obvious to teachers, but (students) put binders up a little higher, they put their purse in a certain spot, they can text from the side, from the hip -- there's a lot of different ways."

It also helps that Flynn and many students are so proficient they can text without looking at their phones.

Mostly they send harmless messages, like about dating or hanging out. But teens also use their phones for legitimate school reasons, like texting themselves reminders about homework.

Minneapolis schools officially have a total cell phone ban, but the head of district safety, Craig Vana, said no one really tries to confiscate all phones -- just those that are misused.

Vana said the biggest supporters of cell phones are parents wishing to keep in touch.

"I think it's definitely a distraction but I'm still going to do it," Emma Horner said over pizza in Minneapolis.

"It's more interesting than school," Sarah Krall chimed in.

"If we weren't distracted that way," Max Gerbner said, "we'd find some other way."

Parents and students in the Stillwater district can now get text messages when there's a snow day.

In Cannon Falls, the rule is "keep it out of sight." But that could soon change to require all phones to be placed on desks with ringers off, so that teachers can verify that students aren't using them.

Fergus Falls students can use phones between classes, but not during. Parents of first-time violators must sign a form acknowledging the policy.

"Sometimes parents want the school to be the bad guy," Assistant Principal Greg Winter said. "'Well, I told you not to bring that cell phone to school, now look what happened,"' instead of joining in with us and helping us teach them -- and for the most part, the rest of us -- the proper way to use cell phones."

Fergus Falls students caught misusing a phone twice used to lose the phone for the school year. That was recently cut to just two weeks.

Winter said that's because the yearlong ban was useless -- parents who wanted to keep in touch just kept replacing confiscated phones with new ones.

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