School Committee focuses on cell phones and attendance

By Barbara Taormina

REVERE – The school committee tackled two issues this week that raised the question of whether Revere was returning to the old days of education.

Committee member Anthony Caggiano opened a discussion on cell phones.

“Cell phones have to leave the classroom, period, end of conversation,” said Caggiano adding it’s impossible not to see how disruptive they are.

The committee approved a cell phone policy last year that does not allow cell phone use in class. High school students can carry their phones and use them during their lunch period.

Students who do use a phone in class can have their phone confiscated and returned at the end of the period. Repeated offenses would mean a confiscated phone could only be returned to parents.

“Too many teachers won’t take phones away,” said Caggiano who added a ban on cell phones in schools is being considered at the state level. He suggested Revere be ahead of the curve and ban them now. “Do the teachers a favor and throw them out of the classroom,” he said.

Superintendent Diane Kelly, who has expressed concerns about teachers taking a phone and students physically responding, said there has been talk about a contract program with families, most of whom carry their kids on their phone plans.  Kelly said parents can go into their plans and limit their student’s phone use to emergency calls during school hours.

Kelly suggested some parents would embrace the idea of a contract.

Committee members agreed to continue hammering out a policy as they have three upcoming months to figure out which way to go with a cell phones.

Attendance, which is down since before Covid, was also up for discussion at this week’s meeting. Committee member John Kingston shared a story about a conversation with a retired teacher who told him about a student who missed 15 days of school while travelling with his family.

Kingston questioned the attendance policy and if there were any consequences for students who missed so much class time.

Supt. Kelly intervened and said if a student can miss 15 days and still master class content, there’s something wrong with the class. It’s not rigorous or challenging enough. Kelly asked the committee if they wanted to go back to the old days when if you missed five days, you failed.

And that’s not where committee members wanted to go. They suggested better tracking methods and alerts to parents when students are absent. Engaging parents for an intervention about problems with attendance was seen as a next step. The committee also felt there was room to accommodate family vacations and trips.

“I get offended when you say we are going back to the old days,” committee member Aisha Milbury-Ellis said to Kelly. “We don’t want to go back, but we want to have standards.”