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Monday, April 19, 2004

Bill: Safety calls for cell phones

By DEBORAH CIRCELLI
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

TALLAHASSEE — Jim Bishop, principal of Pathways Elementary in Ormond Beach, doesn’t mind his pupils carrying cell phones to school to contact their parents if there is an emergency.

His 16-year-old son needed his help this year after his car would not start at Seabreeze High School. Volusia County school officials started allowing students last school year to carry cell phones to school, but students in other Florida school districts aren’t so fortunate.

With the fifth anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School on Tuesday, Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, wants to ensure students in counties throughout the state be allowed to have cell phones and pagers on campus without penalties.

“The first thought as a parent is, ‘I hope that my child is all right.’ But they don’t know,” Lynn said. “It’s a safety factor. Parents and children need to have a way of communicating.”

The Senate passed Lynn’s bill (CS/SB 184) earlier this month, requiring school districts to set policies allowing both cell phones and pagers on campus and to develop rules on when they can be used. The House may vote on the bill this week.

“It’s just a very nice reassurance for parents to know their child can get hold of them,” Bishop said.

State law currently prohibits pagers on school campuses or at school functions and makes it grounds for suspension or expulsion on top of a criminal penalty. It also allows school districts to decide if they want cell phones in school. But that would change under the bill.

Volusia County and Flagler County, which also allows students to carry cell phones if they are turned off, would have to adjust their policies to allow for pagers and all other wireless communication devices, if the bill becomes law.

The bill would still require disciplinary action or criminal penalties if the devices are used to State officials prohibited pagers and some schools also banned cell phones because educators were concerned in the 1980s that students would use the devices to participate in gang activity or for drug sales, according to Senate staff reports.

There was also concern about the phones causing a distraction in classrooms.

But states have been changing policies since 12 students and a teacher were killed at Columbine High in Colorado and since cell phones helped family members stay in contact during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

“We don’t want any kids to be in a situation like that,” said Diane Dyer, director of informational service for Flagler County Schools.

A Senate analysis shows nine states have recently changed their laws to allow such devices in schools.

Florida is one of 13 currently restricting pagers or cell phones. Other states allow local authorities to decide what policy they want.

Lynn sought a change after hearing from parents in her district and seeing a presentation from 12 Middleburg High School students in Clay County whose class project last fall showed that districts throughout the state had different policies. The students have appeared before legislative committees in the past month.

“They never thought their project would get this big,” said Marty Mayer, a Middleburg High School public speaking teacher.

“We just don’t think students should be punished for having a phone in their purse or book bag.”

Ron Pagano, principal at Atlantic High School, said school districts including Volusia are going to have to be cautious about when the cell phones and pagers can be used.

He said cell phones could hinder a situation like Columbine if too many people are coming to the scene and police are trying to secure the area.

But he also said new policies need to be set on text messaging on pagers and cell phones and the use of camera phones.

He said there is a concern students could use the phones to cheat on a test.

The current policy says phones can’t be on, but doesn’t address text messaging, he said.

“It’s a concern out there. Technology is definitely going to keep us on our toes,” Pagano said.

Did You Know?

The pager was invented in 1949 by electrical engineer Al Gross.

The pager resulted from an adaptation of the walkie-talkie, which Gross invented in 1938. Additionally, Gross was a pioneer in citizens’ band (CB) radio and the inventor of the cordless telephone.

Gross intended the pager — a pocket-sized wireless receiver — to be used primarily by physicians. When he first showed the prototype to doctors at a 1956 medical conference, doctors were reluctant to embrace the technology. They told Gross they didn’t want to be disturbed during golf.

In 1950, the Jewish Hospital in New York became the first hospital to utilize pagers.

With advances in cell phone technology and the decrease in cost, the popularity of pagers has waned. A recent Washington Post article reports the largest paging firms have lost more than half of their subscribers since 1998.

Compiled by News Researcher Karen Duffy. SOURCES: web.mit.edu/invent/iow/gross.html; The Washington Post.

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