REGIONAL— The St. Louis County school board passed a bell-to-bell cellphone ban for the upcoming school year. Students will not be allowed to use their phones during the school day, including at lunch and during passing periods. At the same meeting, the school board approved new hires and resignations for the upcoming school year.
Concerns about enforcement, theft, and the need for phone use in specific classes caused some discussion before the vote.
School board member Kristin Zorn expressed concerns about repeating enforcement issues with the current phone policy. “I’m not sold on it because I feel like this is kind of what we tried to do last year, minus the lunch hour, and it started out great. Everybody was enforcing it, and it worked, and then it just slowly went away,” Zorn said.
Zorn added that students keeping their phones in their lockers all day could lead to theft, especially due to the number of students who “penny” their lockers to prevent them from fully locking.
“I told my kids that they can’t leave it in their locker because my son got two chargers stolen last year from his locker,” board member Mallory Manick added.
Board member Chris Koivisto, who expressed concerns at the last school board meeting when the ban was proposed, doubled down, explaining that some online classes require two-factor authentication and would present issues with consistent enforcement.
“I understand you need to get students in the habit of time and place, to put the phone away while they’re in the class, but I’m just afraid there’s too much need for access to phones in today’s society to say we should take it completely away when you walk in the door,” Koivisto said.
The board eventually voted to pass the cellphone ban, with two dissenting votes, from Zorn and Koivisto.
The board also approved new hires and resignations for the upcoming school year.
New hires included:
• Scout Aiken, special education at Northeast Range.
• Adam Hagen, elementary physical education at Northeast Range.
• Malania Madill, elementary teacher at Northeast Range.
• Christine Mackai, band teacher at Northeast Range and Tower-Soudan.
• Jamie Kultala, paraprofessional at North Woods.
Resignations and retirements included:
• River Cheney, paraprofessional and assistant coach, at North Woods.
• Lori Schiler, nutrition employee, at North Woods.
• Angela Schultz, assistant girls basketball coach, at North Woods.
• Lisa Pierce, paraprofessional, at North Woods.
• Keiza Besemann, Indigenous support advocate, at Tower-Soudan.
• Blake Scofield, elementary computer science teacher, at North Woods.
In other business, the board:
• Discontinued the hockey cooperative agreement between North Woods and Hibbing Public Schools after Hibbing asked the district to pay more than $4,000 per student.
• Heard that all St. Louis County schools will host open houses next Tuesday, Sept. 1, from 4 to 7 p.m.