In the morning Waterville Junior-Senior High Principal Nick Rauch walks into the cafeteria where about 35 students start their day with breakfast waiting for school to begin.
“It’s sad, more than anything,’’ Rauch told WCS Board of Education members during their meeting last week.
Not one of the students is interacting with another, he said. Instead, they are all on their cell phones.
Rauch gave the board a glimpse of a proposed revision in the High School cell phone policy during the meeting. He described the current policy as wide open with students able to use their phones all during the day anywhere in the building unless a teacher has a stricter classroom policy.
Rauch said the district’s technology means students no longer need phones in class for work. “They are a constant distraction to students,’’ he said. “More and more, we have instances where we have to police students. My other concern is increasingly what these devices to do children’s brains and the social/emotional end.’’
Rauch said current high schoolers are becoming a generation that cannot unplug. “Some kids are on their phones for 15 hours a day,’’ he said.
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