Subject: Provo Utah Schools ban "interfering devices" (Kelley)..
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 135217 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 13:56:40 -0700
From: Libby Kelley
To: rbeavers@llion.org
Subject: Provo Utah Schools ban "interfering devices"
Utah News, Tuesday, October 19, 1999
Provo schools go beepless
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.
"Many of these items become a target for theft as well."
Libby Kelley
Executive Director
Council on Wireless Technology Impacts
aka ~ Ad Hoc Association of Parties Concerned about
the FCC's Radiofrequency Radiation Health and Safety Rules
____________________________
Website: http://www.ccwti.org
Phone - 415-892-1973
Fax - 415-892-3108
Address:
936-B Seventh Street, PMB 206
Novato, California 94945
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com