School board relaxes cell phone policy

Lynchburg City School Board members voted Tuesday to relax the division’s cell phone policy and, in a separate vote, to allow young students to earn sales prizes for school fundraisers.

High school students may now keep their cell phones with them during the day, so long as they are not used during instructional time. They may not use cell phones in the halls or in classrooms before class, but may use them during lunch, in lieu of using a pay phone. Middle school students must keep their cell phones in their lockers.

The previous policy banned students from possessing cell phones at all schools. Elementary and alternative schools will stick with that ban.

“It was so compelling to hear about the amount of time administration was having to spend enforcing this rule,” school board member Regina Dolan-Sewell said, explaining what won over her initial skepticism about the change.

Board member Treney Tweedy added that she felt the board should call back school principals at the end of next year to report on how well the change is working.

Board members unanimously approved an overhaul of the division’s cell phone policy after first hearing from Richard Park and Walter M. Fore Jr., two area residents who opposed the relaxation. Board members Al Billingsly and Charlie White were absent.

On the fundraising issue, all present school board members except Tom Webb, voted to allow elementary and middle school students to receive individual prizes for sales. The change came at the urging of some members of parent-teacher organizations.

Webb had said at a previous meeting that he is skeptical of the benefit to students from such sales incentives and that he feels prize catalog representatives hawk pie-in-the-sky prizes most students have little hope of winning.

In other business:

- New Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Al Coleman laid out the administration’s plan to begin a review of athletics throughout the division. Coleman called for the creation of a task force to look into the benefits that school athletics provide to the schools, students and the city, as well as the costs they incur and the way they are governed. Coleman said that such a task force would be expected to report back to the board in the spring.

- Chairwoman Mary Ann Barker announced that Dolan-Sewell will be the board’s representative on a task force dedicated to consolidation efforts between the city and schools in Lynchburg.

- Several school board members balked at City Council’s plan to structure a joint steering committee task force on the issue of Heritage High School. Last week, City Council voted to appoint council member Michael Gillette as chairman and Turner Perrow as a second member, with the understanding that two school board members would serve and one would become vice chairman.

Dolan-Sewell questioned that choice. Several other board members agreed that a school board member should co-chair the group with Gillette.

“It does set a precedent then, how we go about every issue,” Barker said.

School board members voted to appoint members Albert Billingsly and Charlie White to the committee, without specifying their positions and discussed writing a letter to council voicing their concerns.

- Schools Chief Financial Officer Beverly Padgett told school board members that she believes the division has a net available balance of $2.87 million left over from fiscal year 2009-2010, though much of that money is tied to specific areas such as special education and not available for discretionary spending.

Padgett said that some of the personnel savings came because of employees who left and were replaced by less experienced employees who received lower salaries. Some of the other areas in which the schools saved money include administration, maintenance and transportation. Final information about money left over will not be available until an ongoing audit is completed, Padgett said.