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Cell Phone Policy Compromise

The Williamson County School Board held its October meetings last week, covering topics ranging from textbook policies to cell phone use in schools

Dan Cash, Josh Brown, and Drason Beasley were absent.

They also held their regular voting meeting Monday night.

The public comments addressed disparate topics:

  • A parent spoke for the third month in a row about death threats that their kid received.
  • A recent WCS grad spoke about the Summer EBT program, asking the board to advocate Gov. Lee to opt in next year.
  • A parent who is a professor spoke in favor of the proposed changes to the cell phone policy, which would disallow wireless communication devices for the entire school day.
  • A parent asked for an investigation into the wrongful termination of Sunset Elementary's principal.
  • Two folks asked that the textbook selection policy include a requirement that board members take an oath regarding conflicts of interest.
  • Beverly Purvis asked the board not to make changes to the cell phone policy mid-year.

The rest of the meeting focused mainly on two topics: the textbook committee policy and how to regulate students' cell phone usage in schools.

Textbook Committee Policy

The board voted on a change to the policy that handles the textbook selection committee. This change will instruct textbook committees to provide more information around their recommendations going forward.

Committee members are required to take an oath, stating that they have no conflicts of interest that will influence their recommendations. There was some discussion about making board members take this oath as well. There were minor disagreements about this. Dana Ausbrooks clarified that board members are already required to disclose conflicts of interest. Melissa Wyatt still wanted to add the oath requirement for extra protection. Tony Bostic expressed minor reservations about adding the provision.

Cell Phones in Schools

Claire Reeves rewrote the wireless communication policy based on the technology committee’s recommendations. She also proposed that this new policy be implemented in January of 2026. At the Work Session, Eric Welch took exception to this proposed timeline, citing the technology committee and school principals whose consensus was to avoid changing the rules in the middle of the school year. There were some heated exchanges during the work session. But at the voting meeting yesterday, Dr. Reeves amended her proposal to be implemented in August of 2026.

Next Meeting

There's only one school board meeting left this year and it will be on Monday, November 17, 2026 at 6:30pm. Your presence makes a difference.