Cell Phones Allowed During High School Lunch

The Williamson County School Board held its November meetings over the past week. The main topic was the adoption of a new policy regarding cell phones and other wireless communication devices.

All board members were present for both the Work Session and the voting meeting.

Work Session

Agenda
Live Stream - 3:18:09

Voting Meeting

There were three students and one parent who spoke during public comment in favor of allowing high schoolers to have access to their cell phones during lunch.

Three parents spoke in favor of banning access for the entire day.

There were also four folks who spoke about various safety incidences. Mr. Golden responded to them as a group, saying that "we have some room to grow" when it comes to communication regarding SPED students.

Cell Phone Policy

There was a very lengthy discussion regarding the cell phone policy that was up for a vote. The bottom line is that high schoolers will have access to their cell phones during their assigned lunch time. They are still trying to figure out how best to implement the restriction for all other scenarios.

They discussed the possibility of using velcro bags that act as faraday cages, so that the student could keep the phone in their backpack, but it wouldn't be functional until it was removed from the bag. There was also some mention of having a centralized location for the cell phones to be stored. Each solution has is limitations and the board has asked Mr. Golden and his team to figure out an implementation strategy.

Five Year Capital Plan

The board also voted on their Five Year Capital Plan, which is how they tell the County Commission what to expect from their budget requests for the next five years. It is not binding, but it gives a good indication of where money will be spent. For instance this year, the board is requesting $4m for a renovation at Grassland Middle and $17m is being requested to start work on a new elementary school on the "Split Log Property" which will need another $43m in each of the 27-28 and 28-29 budgets to complete it.

Calendars

Each of the next two school year calendars were approved. They will be very similar to recent calendar with the first day of school being Monday, August 10th in 2026 and Monday, August 9th in 2027.

Textbook Adoption Committee Policy

A proposed addition to the textbook adoption committee policy that was brought to this meeting contained the sentence "One Board member shall be appointed to serve on the committee and shall subscribe to the oath required by state law." There was a discussion about the second "shall" in that sentence. Jay Galbreath motioned to change it to "may" so that the board member does not have to take the oath. That amendment passed 10-2 with Melissa Wyatt and Eric Welch voting in the negative.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be in 2026! Tuesday, January 20th at 6:30pm. See you there!