Dick Heidt - City Magazine

| EDUCATION
how do local schools deal with
student cell phones?
Technology can be a blessing and a
curse. Take cell phones, for instance.
We all know how irritating it is to
encounter a driver who is paying more attention
to his cell phone than his driving. But what
about cell phone use in schools?
The three Bismarck high schools have three
different sets of rules regarding cell phone use.
Century High School allows students to use
their phones to talk or text within school walls.
However, they are not allowed to use them
while in the classrooms. If a student breaks the
rule, he or she receives a verbal warning. With
a second offense, the phone is confiscated,
By Jan Schultz
parents called, and the phone can only be reclaimed
by the parent.
Mark Murdock, vice principal at Century,
said phones must be “off and out of sight” at the
school from bell to bell or from the beginning of
class to the end. “Pretty much all students have
cell phones,” said Murdock, “and they use them
in the commons and throughout the school.”
Bismarck High School has a “no cell phones
in school” policy, and St. Mary’s High School
is somewhere in between. “Our cell phone
policy is ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ said Thomas
Eberle, principal of St. Mary’s High School.
“We have an occasional complaint, but stu-
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