Cellphone restrictions coming to Burnaby classrooms next year

Cellphone restrictions are coming to Burnaby classrooms next year, but exactly what that will look like has yet to be determined, according to the school district.

The provincial government announced in January it was taking steps to keep children and youth safe from online threats, including restricting cellphone use in school.

The province said it would work with school districts to ensure "all schools have policies in place by the start of the next school year to be able to restrict students' cellphone use in the classroom."

The Burnaby school district will be in full compliance with any provincial directives, according to deputy superintendent Roberto Bombelli, but those directives have yet to be clarified.

"The announcement was fairly general and broad based," he said in an interview with the NOW last month, "and so now the detail of that is being hashed out, and then we’ll get a better understanding of what's required for September and make sure we have it in place."

Up to now, managing students' cellphone use in classrooms has been left up to teachers, according to Bombelli.

"We've had, in Burnaby, in classrooms and schools, individual teachers able to manage their classrooms in a way that they feel best supports learning," he said, "and that can be strategies from not allowing cellphones at all; others incorporate them into lessons, some have them out when they're appropriate, and others don't have any rule around that and manage that as a classroom management piece. And our schools and our principals have supported teachers in doing that."

The district's first step after the provincial announcement has been to determine exactly what is going on at local schools when it comes to cellphones.

"We're doing a scan of what is out there, what's working well in Burnaby, in terms of managing cellphones in classrooms, and we're going to put that information together to guide our steps forward about where we might land and what we do as a district," Bombelli said.

While Burnaby will be in compliance with the province's directives, Bombelli said student cellphone use policies may end up looking different district to district.

"My understanding from the ministry is that they're asking districts to come up with this, so it wouldn't be one thing that applies across the whole province,' Bombelli said.

'Not just cellphones'

While restricting cellphone use in schools was one part of the January announcement, Bombelli noted the province also emphasized the need for more training in digital literacy and citizenship, and for students to develop healthy relationships with technology.

That is work the Burnaby school district already has well underway, according to Bombelli.

He pointed to a new education technology plan launched at schools in September.

"It's really a wraparound approach, an awareness campaign designed around, not just cellphones, but thinking about classroom learning and tech and also management outside of school, so teaching kids things around digital footprints, appropriate digital citizenship and behaviour online, when to use technology and when not to, and those kinds of things."

Last month, the district launched an initiative for parents as well, with grade specific online resources.

And in the coming months, the district will host four parent information evenings.

Dubbed "Building Healthy Digital Habits Together," the information evenings are for parents and families looking for practical way to support kids with healthy use of technology.

Each night will include a Q&A session about helping students to navigate their digital lives safely and respectfully.

The school district will send registration details directly to families in the coming days.

The sessions will run from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at high schools in each of the district's four zones: