PRESCOTT, Ark. — Prescott School District shared a few important policy changes that will be implemented during the upcoming school year— and some parents have not been happy about them.
The school district announced the updates to their 2022-2023 Student Handbook in a Facebook post shared on Friday afternoon.
The rules outlined new policies regarding cell phones, tardies, absences, and vapes.
Prescott's new cell phone policy stated that no cell phones, smart watches, earbuds, headphones, or any other electronic devices are allowed on campus at any time.
If students need to bring an electronic device for personal reasons or for a school-sponsored trip, it must be turned in to the office or left in their vehicle during the day.
Each violation of this rule will result in a $10 fine and the students' parents will be contacted to come and pick up the phone.
On their second offense, students will receive three days of in-school suspension, a third offense will result in three days of out-of-school suspension, and a fourth offense will result in an expulsion recommendation.
Prescott School District Superintendent, Robert Poole explained on Monday that the phones were distracting and hindering classroom learning.
"If a lot of parents knew what kids were using their cell phones for, they probably take them and throw them in the trash immediately," Poole said.
Parents expressed concern that removing all communication on campus will make it difficult for their kids to reach out to them about things like pick-up arrangements or in case of an emergency.
When asked about this concern Poole said, "...if you're in a situation, and you're going to contact your parents, what's the first thing your parents want to do, they're gonna want to come to school, and they're gonna cause a lot of chaos. And you will have a lot of parents who have guns, they're gonna come to school."
Additionally, Prescott's tardy policy has changed so that whenever a student accumulates three tardies for a class period, they will have to serve detention either before or after school.
If a student fails to show up to detention, they will not be allowed to participate in any extracurricular events or school trips— and might even have to attend Saturday school to make up the time.
Tardies will also be given out each time a student needs to leave class to go to the restroom.
This new policy has raised a lot of questions, including what this means for students who may have stomach issues or experience menstruation and whether they will be given extra time in between classes for restroom breaks.
Poole addressed this concern and explained, "Last year, we had so many kids that would say I want to go to the bathroom and to be gone for 30 minutes and miss class time... We had to have something in place to prevent that from happening... We have never, and we will never ever prevent a kid from going in the bathroom."
Poole also explained that many students would take cell phones to extended bathroom breaks for online social media postings and challenges.
The policy on absences has also changed so that a student will be denied class credit if they have 10 unexcused absences. This is per semester and will reset at the beginning of each new semester.
Excused absences are only accepted in the form of doctor's notes, court, school business, or "unusual circumstances."
No more than four parent notes will be accepted per semester for excused absences.
After the fifth unexcused absence, a meeting will be called with the student and their parent to discuss the situation.
If a student has 10 unexcused absences, a letter will be sent notifying their parent that a FINS— or Families In Need of Services, a juvenile delinquency prevention program through the Youth Service Bureau— has been filed.
Lastly, Prescott's policy on vaping has also changed. If a student is caught with any vape products, they will receive three days of in-school suspension.
Students will receive five days of in-school suspension on the second offense, and three days of out-of-school suspension on the third offense.
The comment section was turned off on the original post after it received a flood of messages from angry and concerned parents with nearly 40 thousand interactions from people across the country.
PSD did not expect such a huge response to their policy.
"Other school districts are doing the exact same things we're doing, you know, and much larger school districts...I have no idea why ours is all sudden, you know, the ones [people on social media] picked to choose to run with," added Poole.
THV11 did look at handbooks of other Arkansas school districts and found similar policies to Prescott's but did not find any identical ones in the handful that were read.
While outrage poured in online, some parents in Prescott actually support the measures.
One parent stressed, "[Kids] do not need those cell phones and they need the follow up Poole's rules."
Poole said that he is open to change and the school district does have an open door policy.
The next school board meeting will be open to the public as of Monday night, it does not currently have a posted meeting date.