Lincoln School District unveils revamped policies, handbooks ahead of school year

As Lincoln School students head back to their classrooms next week, they can expect to see a few changes to the rules, as new policies enacted by the Lincoln School Board go into effect.

Among the most notable changes are those dealing with attendance and cell phone usage.

After Lincoln Junior High School's accreditation status was put into the "Advice" category earlier this year, due to issues with absenteeism and failing grades among 7th and 8th graders, Lincoln School Superintendent Carla Anderson said changes to the school handbook could be a first step toward rectifying the problems.

"We spent a lot of time at the school board on handbooks," Anderson said. "Probably the biggest change is that we added 7th and 8th grade into the high school book, so it's junior high and high school together"

Anderson said the new 7-12 handbook allows the junior high students to be held accountable for attendance in the same way high schoolers are, as opposed to the less rigorous elementary school standard. Under the new standards, junior high students who exceed the allowed number of absences lose a percentage of their grade for additional absences.

"That was the first big change," she said. "It meant a lot of rewriting and the board was great about helping us reword things. They'd get online to other schools and find things they liked the wotding of better than ours. The board actively participated in the rewriting."

Another attendance policy change deals with noon tardies. For High School students, Lincoln school has an open campus policy that allows them to leave school grounds at lunchtime. Until now, students have been allowed up to six tardies when returning from lunch off campus. This year, that drops to just two. If a student exceeds two noon tardies, he or she will lose open campus privileges for the remainder of the quarter.

"We need to get back here after lunch," Anderson said.

Possibly the most controversial policy change will prove to be the one concerning cell phone use by 7th through 12th grade students.

Last year, students were required to keep their phones turned off, and classrooms had transparent racks for them during class. However, she said they had "a heck of a time" with compliance.

"I guess it was an issue with all 7-12," she said. "When I get a phone call form a parent who says 'I'm watching my kid on Facebook' and it's third period, that's pretty disheartening."

This year, phones aren't allowed in classrooms at all, and must remain off and stored in the student's locker.

Anderson said the Montana High School Association recommends accepting that cell phones are here to stay and that the focus should be on teaching kids the appropriate times to use them, but the school board opted for a more stringent approach.

"The board figures they can earn that back, and need to have a year of weaning them from their phones while they're in school to concentrate on scholastics," she said, adding that school board member Scott Zarske pointed out that they are there to provide a non -distracting environment for learning.

"Phones are terribly distracting," Anderson agreed.

The new policy also adds stiffer penalties for violations. This year, students who violate the cell phone policy the first time automatically get detention and their parents have to come pick up the phone. A second violation will earn the student a day of in-school suspension and see their phone confiscated for the remainder of the school year.

Anderson said she's not sure how the new policy will be received by kids or their parents, but at least one student she's spoken to about it said it shouldn't be too much of a problem, if they understand the policy up front.

Anderson explained that they should, since the students and their parents will have to sign off on both the cell phone policy in the handbook and the technology agreement.

The new cell phone policy also means teachers will have to be sure to follow and enforce the rules.

"It's kind of a down the chain; we all have to follow this rule," Anderson said. "It's gonna be something I think I'll really have to police in the beginning."

Anderson said the teachers she's talked to so far seem to be ok with the new policy, and are kind of relieved they won't have to deal with them.