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Friday, December 9, 2011
Younger cellphone users prompt new school rules
Courtney Gibson was 8 when she got her first cellphone, the prepaid kind programmed so that she could only her call mom, dad or 911.
Now 12, she carries a pink-covered iPhone. How did she get it? She sold her American Girl doll for $100 so she could upgrade to a smartphone.
Gibson said most kids in her sixth-grade class at Englewood Hills Elementary School have mobile phones.
“It’s just fun,” she said. “You have the ability to call and text and you have games if you get bored or anything.”
A study last year by Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI) found that 20 percent of U.S. children ages 6 to 11 own a cell phone, up from nearly 12 percent in 2005. The most dramatic increase, about 81 percent, has been among 10- and 11-year-olds.
As the phones grow in popularity, schools across the Miami Valley have had to adjust their policies. Many prohibit students from using them during school hours or risk having them taken away or face punishments including detention.
That’s what happens at Englewood Hills, where parents have to come in to retrieve the phones if they’re taken away.
Bob Yux, assistant superintendent for business at Centerville City Schools, said the district’s cellphone policy covers high school, middle school and elementary students. Electronic devices must remain off and out of sight during the school day.
Cellphones are not permitted because they can be disruptive in class. Another issue: With smartphones featuring Internet access, kids may try to seek answers via Google.
“I’m not going to say kids don’t cheat, but that’s certainly an opportunity to gather information,” Yux said. “Those are all elements that 20 years ago we didn’t have to worry about.”
Anne Marie Kelly, a senior vice president for MRI, said the large increase in cellphone ownership, particularly among boys, “comes as more wireless providers are targeting parents through feature-rich, kid-friendly phones” such as Disney Mobile’s LG Phone and Firefly Communications’ FlyPhone.
Sarah Shumaker, a sales representative for T-Mobile at the Mall at Fairfield Commons in Beavercreek, said she’s noticed more parents looking at phones for their younger children this year. Verizon sales rep Noah Benefiel also is seeing that trend.
“Some families want to make sure they know where their kids are at all times,” he said, noting that they may find it a deal to add a line for $10.
April Gibson, Courtney’s mother, said her daughter is a straight-A student, but it was her maturity level and responsible nature that convinced her to let Courtney upgrade to an iPhone 3 more than a year ago.
“I felt like if she was willing to pay for it then she might take care of it better,” she said.
Lisa Burr of Clayton, a teacher with two children, ages 11 and 7, understands why some parents get phones for their kids. Her nephew is 11 and has one, but he gets dropped off at the bus stop, comes home alone to a house with no landline, she said.
“I see where some parents’ kids do need them,” she said.
She and her husband have shot down their 11-year-old son’s request for one because they think he’s too young.
Burr, a teacher at Germantown Christian School, has noticed that many fifth-graders now carry cellphones. Students at the school caught using them have them taken away and have to pay $5 to get them back.
One high school teacher this year started collecting phones in a basket at the start of each day. “It’s worked out beautifully,” Principal Rhonda Jerman said.
Jerman said parents want to stay connected with their children, some of whom have active sports schedules. She has three daughters, ages 16, 15 and 10.
“My 10-year-old is really pushing for a phone,” she said. She’s not getting one — yet.”
In the Jerman household, the magic age is 13.
Abby Piersall, 11, of Huber Heights, didn’t have to wait as long. Hers arrived as a surprise birthday gift last year. She uses it every day, especially to text friends.
“I would say she’s too young, but it’s come in really handy when she went to Kings Island with friends,” her grandmother Karen Cramer said. “They all have them, every one of them.”
TweetWord “never” wasn’t in Littlejohn’s vocabulary
My former colleague, Scott Elliott, wrote this op-ed piece that appeared in today’s Dayton Daily News. Elliott, now education reform reporter for the Indianapolis Star, was an education reporter and editorial writer at the Dayton Daily News from 1998 to 2010.
The sudden and shocking passing of former Dayton school board president Gail Littlejohn last week should prompt Daytonians to reflect on her legacy and consider the lessons of her historic tenure as the city’s prime mover in K-12 education.
Littlejohn, pure and simple, was a transformational figure who did more to change education in the city than anyone since a federal judge issued the landmark 1976 order to dismantle Dayton’s segregated school system.
Littlejohn’s greatest triumph was her vision and unshakable belief that barriers to change could be overcome. Since her departure for a job in Houston in 2007, no one has fully replaced her vigor and passion.
On the day then-Gov. Bob Taft announced in 1999 his plan to spend Ohio’s $10 billion tobacco settlement to rebuild schools, I happened to be with Dayton Public Schools’ business operations chief. He was livid. The state was offering more than $350 million to rebuild all the city’s schools, but requiring Dayton voters to approve at least $230 million in matching dollars. That’s never going to happen, he told me.
I heard the same about the court order requiring tons of money and energy be spent pursuing racial balance in a district that had evolved to an enrollment that was more than three-quarters black. Conventional wisdom said getting the state and the NAACP to sign off on dropping the order was insurmountable.
Never going to happen.
It was even assumed that a dysfunctional school board was a fact of life. Electing thoughtful leaders over entrenched, unfocused incumbents was so impossible that instead some dreamed of changing state law to put the mayor in charge of schools.
Never going to happen.
The word “never” simply wasn’t in Littlejohn’s vocabulary. Amazingly, she spearheaded efforts that accomplished all of those things and more in six short years.
She and three allies ran the first professional political campaign for school board, outspending all opponents 20 to 1. As school board president, she settled the desegregation case, getting the state to pay millions to fund an overhaul of the district’s academic program.
And, perhaps most stunningly, nearly two-thirds of Dayton voters said yes in 2002 to $245 million in local taxes for new schools throughout the city after a persuasive campaign Littlejohn helped craft. By her fifth year on the board, Dayton for the first time jumped from the equivalent of an F to a C on its state report card.
Sadly, that apex of the Littlejohn reform era led to a disillusioning swan song. Victimized both by misfortune and its own missteps, the board saw growing community skepticism. Littlejohn, as the face of reform, was a lightning rod for critics. It was tougher for her to convince power brokers, and ultimately voters, the district was on the right path.
Large urban school districts are exceedingly hard to change and communities are impatient. Littlejohn never wavered in her belief that hers was the right way and she struggled to understand the community’s eroding faith.
By 2007, most of her school board allies had been defeated and a major tax levy to keep the reform program intact was crushed at the ballot box.
The last time we spoke, Littlejohn talked of her disappointment.
“Ultimately the city has to decide what kind of school district they want and they are responsible for electing the right people to ensure they get that school system,” she said. “The district has shown this community what we can do with tremendous focus and a lot of support. I think the community is at a place where they have to decide to support that hard work.” That challenge stands today.
Littlejohn’s example should serve as inspiration and she deserves a permanent place in the city’s memory. A new school named for her would be a fitting tribute. Sadly, the school construction program will end in January and the renaming process for schools is complete.
But perhaps an even better tribute would be to rechristen the district’s nameless central office in her honor. In that same 2007 interview, she called professionalizing the district’s management her most important accomplishment.
The Gail Littlejohn Education Center has a nice ring to it.
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