After an hour-long debate covering everything from Fourth Amendment case law to lost backpack procedures, the Juneau Board of Education late Tuesday night adopted a policy limiting “wireless communication device” use in schools.
The change came after the Alaska Legislature passed HB57, which requires public schools to develop policies regarding cellphone usage on school grounds.
The new policy requires K-12 students to keep their devices powered off and stored during school hours. High school students will be allowed limited access outside of school buildings at lunch and other free periods, and exceptions will be made for students using electronic devices for medical or translational purposes.
Several board members said they are worried about student privacy, particularly regarding the search and seizure policy.
“I think it’s a recipe for disaster for society to not give people rights until they’re 18 and then just let them go,” school board member Steve Whitney said.
Whitney cited U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion in Riley v. California, which extends Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure to cellphones.
“Searching a bag versus a cellphone is kind of like comparing a horse-drawn carriage to a rocket ship,” he said, using Roberts’ metaphor.
While other members weren’t entirely sold on search and seizure issues, they supported the change.
“The prevalence of cellphone use is leading to declines in reading performance,” Emil Mackey said. “Is this true? I don’t know, but I’m willing to take the bet. Take a look at the data and see how we’re doing in the long run.”
City Attorney Emily Wright said case law generally does not favor searching cellphones without a warrant, but age plays a significant role in determining legality.
“The Supreme Court has been very critical of searches of cellphones without a warrant. But again, that’s in the adult realm,” she said.
According to Wright, the policy is fully legal and in line with what other school districts have enacted, but members would be within their purview to make wording changes.
“I understand the bigger policy issue that you’re debating and kind of struggling with. And I think that those are the right questions to ask,” she said.
Board member Amber Frommherz also raised concerns about the clarity of the seizure clause in the new policy. She proposed an amendment to change the reasons a cellphone can be searched from “to identify emergency contacts, or upon reasonable suspicion that a school or district rule or the law has been violated,” to “when there are reasonable grounds or suspicion that the search will uncover evidence that the student is violating the law.”
Superintendent Frank Hauser said rephrasing could cause issues for staff who were trying to identify a lost phone.
“I don’t want to potentially create a situation for them that going through and trying to identify the ownership of a phone puts them in jeopardy of potentially having a parent or a student saying that they violated their rights by searching, legally searching their phone, based on current policy that does not have a mechanism for them to identify the ownership,” Hauser said.
Frommherz then withdrew her amendment, restoring the original wording. After a separate amendment by Elizabeth Siddon to correct some minor grammatical errors within the document, the motion to establish the new policy passed 4-2, with Frommherz and Whitney in opposition.
Policy Committee Chair David Noon said this summer will be used to inform people about the new policy.
“We’ve been hearing for quite some time from teachers, parents, caregivers, guardians about the way that cellphones and other devices interfere with the learning environment. That’s the primary change that we’re making here,” Noon said. “With this policy, our intent was to get a policy approved so that we could spend the summer educating parents, caregivers, students, and staff about possible changes.”
The new rule will take effect at the start of the next school year.
• Ellie Ruel can be contacted via editor@juneauempire.com.
