A cellphone ban implemented at the start of this school year received praise in a recent Philomath School Board meeting with a report of widespread compliance and improved classroom environments.
To be completely honest, this perspective on how the cellphone ban is going in Philomath surprised me a little bit. I mean, we’re talking about teenagers and cellphones. I anticipated pushback.
But hey, it was great to hear these comments and out of curiosity, I contacted Philomath High’s principal to also get his take on how the ban has gone.
Camille Kaplan, a regular substitute teacher in Philomath and former member of the School Board’s policy subcommittee, commended the policy’s success.
“I am just so pleased about how the cellphone ban is going in the schools,” Kaplan said. “Both my experience teaching and my children’s experience being students, I’ve heard really positive feedback from the kids saying that basically everyone is abiding by the ban, which honestly, I was pretty skeptical about.”
Kaplan said at the Oct. 9 meeting she had witnessed only one instance of a student pulling out a phone in the previous month — and that student immediately complied when asked to put it away.
“Just walking around, I feel like the academic environment is so much better, the social environment is so much better,” she said. “For me as a sub, the consistency of going into this room and going to that room and it’s just one policy across the board has been really nice.”
Philomath High School Principal Mark Henderson confirmed the positive reception, saying enforcement has been largely trouble-free.
“There really hasn’t been any challenges,” Henderson said. “We have the occasional use violations but nothing major across the entire student body.”
Henderson said teachers are particularly enthusiastic about the change, reporting that students are much more engaged in classroom activities and discussions. While student misbehavior hasn’t decreased compared to previous years, the quality of academic participation has noticeably improved.
The social impact extends beyond the classroom. Henderson said students are interacting more during lunch and between classes, though many who leave campus for lunch use that time to check their phones.
Parent reaction has been mixed but largely quiet, according to Henderson. While a few parents have expressed frustration with the ban, most appear supportive of keeping phones out of classrooms.
Kaplan expressed gratitude to everyone involved in making the policy work.
“I want to say thank you to students and parents for actually doing it,” she said, adding praise for administrators and teachers who have implemented and enforced the rules.
No adjustments to the policy are currently being considered, though Henderson said he would like to see state-level changes that would ease restrictions on phone use during passing periods and lunch.
“It’s been amazing that I could talk to groups of people and tell them that our students are just knocking it out of the park,” Philomath Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday said at the meeting. “They are doing so good, it’s really sweet.”
2. Lots of running in Philomath
Lilly’s Lope for Hope is scheduled to occur this morning at Philomath City Park, so for the second straight weekend you might notice a lot of folks running around town. This past Sunday, the Great Pumpkin Run featured a 10-kilometer route that started at Ashbrook Independent School in west Corvallis and went into Philomath.
The organizers of the event overlooked the Philomath News as a media outlet to help them publicize the event (I asked them to please include me next year) so I didn’t know it was happening until a friend told me that he woke up and saw cones outside of his house — wondering if public works might have something planned.
Instead, he saw a couple of Waldos (of Where’s Waldo fame) running past his house and noticed a water station set up at Peace Lutheran Church. Runners were invited to enter a costume contest as part of the event.
The event featured not only a 10K but also a 5K run/walk and a 1K fun run. There was even an inflatable obstacle course.
The event’s organizer, Home Life, assists people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Benton and Linn counties. The 53-year-old nonprofit has residential, supported living and vocational programs to promote independent living skills and community integration.
Look for a photo gallery this weekend from Lilly’s Lope.
3. Successful Citizens Academy
A new approach to the Philomath Citizens Academy appears to be working out well. That’s the word from City Manager Chris Workman with two more sessions remaining.
Workman introduced the civic education program in 2017 as a way to encourage interaction between local government and residents while promoting transparency but also to address a shortage of applicants for various city committees.
In past years, those interested were required to register and attend a certain number of sessions to earn a completion certificate. After failing to sign up enough people over the past two years, Workman this year eliminated registrations and just left the sessions open to drop-in participants.
“I’m super happy with the Citizens Academy,” Workman told the City Council this week. “We’ve had an average of 12 but upwards of over 20 people in total have participated in different sessions.”
Asked for his thoughts on why the program has attracted more people this year, Workman said that not only was it better publicized, but he believes that the creative approach to not requiring registration ahead of time factors into the numbers.
“In years past, even when we’ve started with 14, we’ve ended with six,” Workman said. “So it kind of dwindled down and then people didn’t feel like they could join halfway through and we’re not seeing that.”
The two sessions remaining include planning and land-use decisions on Oct. 23 and nonprofit organizations on Oct. 30. The programs are scheduled to run from 6-8 p.m.
Among those that have been completed, Workman said one involving Public Works proved to be popular and even ran past 9 p.m.
“Anyone who’s done seven of the nine sessions will come here in November and get their certificate of completion,” Workman said.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).
