The Rock Island Milan School District staff are seeking public input as it drafts its technology and cellphone policy ahead of an Illinois law requiring district regulations on its use.
At Tuesday night’s school board committee of the whole meeting, district staff presented a timeline for drafting a final policy before the state law takes effect in the 2027-28 academic year. The law requires school districts to comply with restrictions on cell phone use. The policy will address communication, enforcement, equity, and implementation.
Deputy Superintendent Jeff Dase and other district staff presented what they hope to achieve over the next four months. The first phase is reviewing current policies to figure out what to keep or discard. Then the district will hold a series of virtual and in-person town halls seeking input from scholars, staff, guardians, and community members from October through January.
The information gathered during the town hall process will be refined into a draft policy, which will then go through a new advisory committee for further refinement.
"[C]losing the feedback loop before final adoption. We wanna form a wireless communication device advisory team. I know that's a long title, fancy, but consider being a part of it," Dase said. "Because we need stakeholder voices from scholars, teachers, along with the collective bargaining union administrators, all the way to community representatives and district leadership. This team will be charged with providing you all with feedback as far as on the final draft before we seek your approval for our wireless communication policy for the next school year."
Following the presentation, board members, district staff, and residents discussed the challenges of addressing the multitude of issues tied to the policy. Topics included the frequent disruptions of cell phone use in class; teachers and other staff using phones in class in front of students; parents' preference to contact their kids at any time; the importance of equity in ensuring students with disabilities can still access necessary technology; and how to maintain positive learning opportunities with technology.
During discussions, Thurgood Marshall Learning Center Educator O'Nita Watkins-Harris shared with the board that TMLC does not allow students to use phones. Recalling the hectic environment before the school’s policy, she pushed back on the idea that students need cellphone access throughout the school day.
"The parents aren't gonna like it. We don't care. We shouldn't care," Watkins-Harris said. "It's about the safety of the building. It's about reaching these kids socially, emotionally. You cannot get to someone. You can try to get to someone through the computer, I mean, it— or through AI, I get all that. But even our social worker talked about how we're able to reach our kids on a social-emotional level that we could not do if they were always on their phones.
"It hurts them when they come to the intake meetings, and they hear they can't have their phones. Sometimes the parents wanna rear up. It's fine, you can feel how you wanna feel. It's our policy, and I would fight every day for that policy if for no other reason, there's an accountability piece to it," Watkins-Harris said. "If you're having a bad day, it can't be because of something on that phone, or you have to deal with it. If you have a problem with someone, you have to actually talk to them. Our kids are looking us in the face. We know immediately if something's wrong with them, even if it's something from the outside, because they're talking to us. So I will always say there does not need to be phones in the classroom like that."
Board member Tracy Pugh said he dug into the various pros and cons of restricting cell phones, ranging from emergency communication to mental health. Pugh mentioned that a few younger employees have quit because they can't have their cell phone and that's scary to him.
"And I think it starts at home and it starts in the school. When you're used to being able to just grab it at any time you want, you own it all the time, constantly, and all of a sudden somebody tells you that you can't have it, even as a young adult, you're not going to like that," Pugh said. "So you'd rather go find a job that would allow you to hold— have your cell phone and be able to look at it all the time than being at a job that gives you full benefits, $64,000 a year starting off, and you get a raise, two raises a year for almost 10 years. It's like they looked— that cell phone was that important to them. It was that important to them to have that cell phone to where they walked out on a good job."
Even though the state law is addressing the use of cellphones in classrooms, many speakers noted the proliferation of artificial intelligence. One speaker was Rock Island High School student Logan Brewer.
"[I]t's a huge problem with the students. It's also a huge problem with the staff," Brewer said. "I mean, from basic teachers all the way up to the administration, a lot of staff members are using AI for things that are just unprofessional. They're using them for reports, announcements, even schoolwork. I took a test today that I believe was written by ChatGPT. It's become a big problem, and I think It needs to be restricted not just for students but for staff as well, because no one should be using it to replace the actual work and learning that school is supposed to provide."
District Superintendent Dr. Sharon Williams responded to questions about how the policy will be enforced.
“So, short answer to who is going to support us in this effort, look in the mirror, everyone, that includes families, anyone who's involved with any child who has a wireless device on them, our teachers, our staff members," Williams said. "Anyone who's a staff member and our principals and peers, each other. So we have advocates who are members of our student councils and student leadership teams in each of our schools. And we're gonna call on them as well."
The first in-person town hall will be October 20th, 5:30 to 6:30 at the Rock Island High School.
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