Cell phone charges on the rise on parish campuses

While the Washington Parish Schools have a written policy in the student handbook prohibiting the use of cell phones and other portable devices, school trustees have decided to put some teeth into the policy.

Based on action taken at the district's board meeting last Thursday, there are fines now associated with the possession of a cell phone on school property.

According to the newly adopted Student Code of Conduct, students caught with a phone the first time would have the phone taken away from them and would have to pay a $25 fine before it would be returned. A second offense would generate a $50 fine and a third offense would result in a $75 fine. Fourth and subsequent offenses would result in disciplinary action beyond a fine.

A former high school substitute said that while there was not widespread usage on the campuses where they substituted, there was cell phone use and even though they were sometimes confiscated, they were returned quickly.

Fines for cell phone use on campus are nothing new, having been implemented at numerous districts in 2009. In the 1990s, Mike Dorn, while chief of police in Bibb County, Ga., implemented a service/recovery fee for confiscated cell phones because his department could not legally fine cell phone use. Cell phones were confiscated from students who used them in class. Parents could recover the phones after paying a $25 “service/recovery” fee and providing proof of ownership of the device.

The Klein ISD, in suburban Houston, implemented a fine policy in 2007 and netted $100,948 in the first two years of the program.