Эпизод 72 - Окружная политика в отношении электронных устройств

10 января, 2025 /
Спенсер Туиней /

Суп с супом

Episode 72 - District Electronic Devices Policy

00:00 / 32:36

The Why Behind the Policy with Jennifer Partridge and Gina Hales

Wendy Dau: Welcome, everyone, to the next episode of Provo City School District’s What’s Up With the Suit podcast. I am Superintendent Wendy Dau. We are excited to be back in school and ready for the second half of the school year. As many of you know, our return to school coincided with the implementation of our new electronic devices policy.

On today’s episode, I will be joined by two of our board members, Jennifer Partridge and Gina Hales, to discuss the purpose of the policy, and the process that the board followed to develop the new policy. But first, let’s go over our updates.

The next school board meeting will be a Study Session and Business Meeting on Tuesday, January 14th.
- The study session will begin at 4:10 PM. in Boardroom 1, and the business meeting will begin at 7:00 PM in the Professional Development Center.
  - Some topics of discussion will include a graduation rate discussion, new board committee assignments, a lease revenue bond, the Utah Fits All scholarship and how that works with our schools, as well as the swearing in of our recently elected board member.

At the December 10th board meeting, the board approved a change to this year’s school calendar.
- This change means that the school year will now end on Wednesday, May 21st, which is two days earlier than originally planned.
  - This information has been emailed to all parents and been posted on the district website and social media.

There are three new policies for review on our district website.
- Go to provo.edu, click on Policies, Forms, and Documents, click on Review Draft Policies here.
  - You will see a draft of Policy 3118: Open Enrollment, Policy 3160: Student Residency, and Policy 4400: Assessment and State Testing.

Continue watching for my weekly videocasts in your email.
- Every Monday, these videocasts provide one place for you to learn about important things happening across the district.

Wendy Dau: Welcome everyone. This week, we have two of our board members, Jennifer Partridge and Gina Hales, who are on our podcast to talk about our electronic devices policy. So, thank you so much for being on our show.

Jennifer Partridge: We’re excited to be here.

Wendy Dau: So let’s talk a little bit about what started this conversation for Provo City School District for the board to start addressing this issue of cell phones in particular in our schools.

Gina Hales: So, I think we’ve always had a little bit of a concern about it, but we were doing so many other things that it wasn’t immediately on our plate. But then, when the Governor requested via letter that we look at having a cell phone policy, I think that, in my mind, that’s what kind of kicked it off and really put it front and center for us. We wanted to make sure that we were doing what he asked and then doing what’s also doing what’s best for our district.

Jennifer Partridge: Yeah. And in addition to that, we are also hearing from some parents– and as well as there’s been an awareness, I think, generally with the public more recently about the effects of cell phones in classrooms, and learning more about that research– we realize it’s time to address it.

Wendy Dau: And I’ve been hearing from teachers as well that, you know, in some cases, it’s just been a fighting battle to get kids to be engaged in class. And so I think we’ve been hearing it all across the board, right? As to the concerns that we’ve had with cell phones in class.

I know that the Governor’s letter talked– it seemed like, and help remind me if I’m mistaken, he was focused more on the social media aspects and the dangers of that piece. We kind of, as a district, took our policy in a little bit of a different direction, where it wasn’t focused solely on social media; it was more focused on the tools.

So, talk about how we ended up in that process because we had quite a lot of discussions about different research that we were reading and different pieces like that. So maybe talk about that journey a little bit.

Jennifer Partridge: What I’ll say to the aspect of the Governor’s letter, for us, our focus has been about what kind of learning environment do we want to have in our schools.

So it’s not that we are against cell phones themselves; it’s that we’re recognizing that they are a distraction and preventing our students from being as focused as they could be. We just finished the strategic plan, and our student achievement is our number one goal. We want them to be successful, and when they’re distracted, when they’re not able to focus, that’s really difficult.

So, we decided to look into this more and determine what is the best way we could approach having focused learning environments. And what role does a cell phone play or not play?

Gina Hales: I agree. I was very appreciative that– I actually can’t remember what the actual title is, but I know that we had talked about the title having something to do with the learning environment.

It’s electronic devices, but in the learning environment, I think that’s the most important thing. And that is really what’s in our purview as the district and the board is to make sure that these learning environments are appropriate and best for our students. And the other thing I really like was that we could have jumped on the bandwagon really fast, and just implemented a policy at the beginning of the school year, but I’m appreciative that we slowed down a little bit and got feedback from parents, from students, from teachers, from administrators, from everybody, because I think we now have a really solid policy.

It doesn’t mean it can’t change if we need to make changes, but I think that getting all that feedback and taking the time, it took quite time and it took resources to get that feedback, and to have these groups of parents and stuff like that– but I really appreciate that we slowed down and took the time to do that because I think number one It will help with compliance.

We had our student board members on on top of it as well. So they’ve talked to us about that a little bit as well, but also allowing parents and teachers and administrators to say what they– not everybody got everything they wanted. I think that’s pretty much everything in life, but they were able to have their voices heard, and I think our policy is better because we did all of that work Wendy Dau: Dive into that a little bit more.

What were the different ways that we went through to get that feedback because we watched a lot of districts adopt policies really quickly after that letter went out from the Governor. And I feel like that you really did kind of push pause and say, “We think this is the direction we’re going to go, but we want to make sure that there aren’t things that we aren’t realizing or recognizing in this process. So talk about what that process was, because I don’t know that everyone always knows, you know, it’s like the sausage making, they don’t know what’s going on behind the policy itself and all of the efforts that went into it. And you guys put in a considerable amount of time. So tell us a little bit about those pieces.

Gina Hales: I know we did a survey and the survey went– it was a digital survey. So it went to parents, it went to everybody that we’ve mentioned, including students, I’m pretty sure we had a focus group.

Jennifer Partridge: Yep. Yeah, we had a focus group of teachers as well as we had involvement from parents in a group. A lot of board members go to PTA meetings on a regular basis.

Even at the district-level PTA meeting, we talked with all the presidents of the schools and got their input. A lot of us received emails. We collected all of that feedback and information. Our students, not only our two student board members, but we have a student advisory council that consists of about 10 students from the high schools, and we got their input as well.

So yeah, we’ve, we’ve had a lot of feedback, which has been very, very important in helping us craft the policy, but also helping spread awareness before the policy went into effect and, like was talked about before, the buy-in that these individuals who’ve been a part of the process recognize the purpose of it and are invested in it and are helping others, their friends and everybody to understand.

Gina Hales: We also did a social media push, right? So we don’t have a board social media, but individually, as board members, we can push that. I got feedback on that. And I know that our communications team did a great job putting together at least one video, maybe more than one video that I looked at and watched. And I think those were also very helpful.

Wendy Dau: I believe in our survey that we had over 3000 responses and then there were comments that were made. And as we went through that and. kind of read every single one of those to kind of see what the trends were. It was very interesting to see how high school students responded very differently from maybe the rest of our rest of our groups.

What were some of the concerns that you were hearing from parents on either side of this issue and how did that inform how your opinion shaped and did your opinion change about it over time as you learned more?

Jennifer Partridge: So one of the main concerns for parents was– well, on one side was the distraction, and there were some parents who said, “Do not have a cell phone in school period.”

One of our biggest considerations was at each level, how do we approach this at each level? And so, in high school, do we treat that differently than in elementary school? And so some were thinking, “Hey, let’s allow cell phones. During passing periods, some said, let’s allow it all day. They’re old enough. They should be able to handle that.”

And some said they don’t have it at all. So there were some parents who were– “This is not good for; I don’t want my student or any of the other students to have a cell phone at all during the day.” And then there were other parents on the other end who said, “I want to be able to get hold of my student during the day.

So don’t take it away. So with the high schools, we landed in the middle, so they don’t get it during class time, but they can access it during passing periods. So, if they need to get hold of Mom or Dad or something at that time, they can.

Gina Hales: One of the things I heard a lot was safety, right? If there’s, luckily and thankfully, we haven’t had any actual real guns in schools that I’m aware of anyway, there’ve been incidents where we thought there was, or we were being careful. So there were lockdowns and parents were like, you don’t want us to know what’s happening. And they think they just didn’t understand. It’s like, no, they will be able to have their phones. And in that situation, they should be able to get their phones.

We just don’t want them to have them during class. And so I think that’s a good example on social media.

Normally, I don’t engage unless it’s my social media, but I wanted them to understand that we really did take that into account and that students will have access, high school students will have access to that, because it will be in their backpack, right, and they can still get to their backpack.

So I think that was a concern. As far as changing my own mind, when the letter first came out, I think it was on the heels of some of the legislative sessions. And sometimes I feel like legislative sessions tend to maybe sometimes overreach into public education. And so when that letter came out, I was like, “Oh, come on, the schools can make up their own mind.

And I don’t know if I agree with this.” However, I thought we need to at least look at it, right? We need to look at it. And as we looked at it, I’d already been aware of some of the research, but as I looked at more of the research and talked to parents and read feedback from parents and different people.

I recognize that this was something that would be beneficial to our students. And so my mind did change. I went from I don’t think that we need to do something this big to no, I think this is beneficial, and I think it will be beneficial for the district to have a district-wide policy rather than some schools kind of being vilified and go, “They’re way too strict,” and all, “They’re way too easy.” I figured that it would help if we had a district-wide policy. And so I really did get on board. But with the changes kind of that, Jennifer talked about, because at first we looked at just no cell phones at all, I’m much more comfortable with the way it is now.

Jennifer Partridge: I was just going to add another concern that we heard a lot of the high school parents were used to being able to text their student and say, come on out and picking you up for your dentist appointment. And their concern was, how am I going to get hold of my student in those situations where when I called the office, I can’t always get hold of anybody?

It was a good opportunity at those schools where there were those concerns that they did an audit of things, and they were able to recognize where they could make some changes. And they have made those changes, and are being able to be more responsive to our families, just like when we were growing up and how our parents got hold of us, like, as the parents now, we can still get a hold of our kids as we need to through the office at school.

Wendy Dau: You know, it’s interesting as we talked in cabinet meetings and district leadership, I think our view is a lot of the belief that teachers should be able to manage this. This is part of designing good classroom instruction and those kinds of pieces. My mind changed over time as teachers started saying, “Well, I understand that, but I have a stricter policy than this person does.

And so then it puts me in this weird situation, and I don’t love it. And parents don’t like that.”And then I started thinking about it more from a parent perspective is– it’s a lot easier to help me support the school if I’m not learning eight different cell phone policies in those classrooms.

And we just know at Provo High School, this is what the expectation is, right? I got a lot more on board with it as well, I will tell you. And I think our cabinet did, too, in recognizing that.

Jennifer Partridge: This is something I’ve personally wanted for a long time. I see it as such a benefit for our teachers, as you just mentioned.

Like we– now we’re working together. So no one has to feel like, “Well, I’m going to be the bad guy,” or –and we want all of them to be able to have their students paying attention to them as they work so hard to prepare to teach these students. We want the students to be able to focus. And I also feel that it’s a good support for the parents.

We have so many parents who are engaged parents who are trying to teach their own children good habits, but as soon as they leave home, if there aren’t systems in place to help continue to teach our kids how to live healthily with technology, that it’s okay to put it away, that there are times and places for certain things, I think we are working together as a team with the parents on that to teach our upcoming citizens, right?

Like– how to live life with technology in a healthy way.

Wendy Dau: Yeah. I actually ended up doing an interview with BYU’s alum magazine where they were talking, when they came in and interviewed us to talk about why we were implementing the policy, and they were trying to look at are there were some things we could do as a university to support university professors, because they’re finding the same issues where even adults don’t know how to use their cell phones.

I’m like, Oh yeah, we’re in meetings all the time. We know that we have adults that were struggling with this, right? It’s not just the kids that life skills. Yes, they are life skills, for sure. One of the concerns that came up as we went through this policy was about, are we confiscating phones? Like some of the emails that I got from parents were about, “Don’t you take my child’s cell phone.”

I get concerned when I’m taking a $1200 device out of the hands of a student, and now we’re responsible for it. Talk a little bit about how we went through that process to figure out what was going to be the best way to enforce the policy, so that we were supporting parents in some of their concerns.

Gina Hales: I don’t remember, to be honest, exactly what we, I remember some of the conversations, but what I, from what I remember, it went from confiscating cell phones– and I think it was you that made us aware, like, I don’t, you said, “I don’t want my administrators having a $1200 device that they’re responsible for.”And I was like, “I never thought about that.”

That’s true. And the parents and the kid don’t want the $1200 device in somebody else’s hands. And so I think we came up with a few different ideas, but we landed on having a pouch that the teachers could have that they would put it in the– I haven’t seen them.

Wendy Dau: It’s a plastic box basically. And it’s virtually indestructible. I tried. Now, I’m sure there are students that can figure out how to do it. I shouldn’t challenge them. They’ll figure out how to do it. But yeah, so it just slides in there. It’s pretty great.

Gina Hales: And so they don’t– the phone doesn’t leave them. It just goes in a pouch that they can’t open.

Well, I’m sure someone will eventually figure it out. We’ll have to stay ahead of the game, but, and so that stays with them, and they can get it unlocked at the office or all the different levels that we have. And so when we actually took it to our student advisory council, That Jennifer mentioned previously, they were like, “Well, it has to be something embarrassing.”

So we had joked about, you know, balloons or something big that they had to carry around with Bluey on it, or actually Bluey might be kind of cool. Who knows?

Jennifer Partridge: A t shirt. I got my phone locked up.

Gina Hales: Yeah. Something like that. Or something in a jail. I think there was something, it was in an actual jail. Yeah. That we talked about. I don’t know. I’m satisfied with what we have, and we’ll see how it works. It seems to be working okay, and I think it will work okay. But like I said, if we need to make changes, we can make changes. We just needed to get going on it.

Wendy Dau: What are some of the things that you’ve been hearing from parents now that the policy is kind of rolling out? Are you hearing appreciation? Are you hearing criticism? Are there still concerns out there that we need to look at and address? What’s been the feedback so far?

Jennifer Partridge: We’re just barely into it, but so — two days in, and I have been to two different schools PTA meetings, a middle school, and a high school, and the parents were very excited and supportive and happy about it.

They were at Timpview High School. The parents were surprised that there weren’t a lot of students that got their phone locked the first day and– but they were also asking the principal like, “Are you making sure the teachers are enforcing this, which she was right?” She’s like, “Yes, we are that we’re all gonna be following this policy.”

But yeah, I think generally the feedback is really good on it, and in fact, at Timpview High School, they were saying just a day and a half in that already teachers were emailing the principal saying our students are relieved to have their phones put away, and they’re noticing that students are a lot more focused overall.

Gina Hales: I haven’t heard anything. I’ve heard about other things, but not this.

Jennifer Partridge: My mom would always say no news is good news, so then they must be happy, right?

Gina Hales: I think one of the things that comes from this is we had a student advisory council member last year, who, as we were starting to have this conversation, and we were even deciding, can the phone be on your person?

Does it need to be in your backpack? You know, what’s happening there? A student pointed out, she said, “When it’s in my pocket, though, even when it’s on silent and whatever, I can still feel the vibration; it still disrupts my thinking. It’s still somehow…”

I’m like, and then all of a sudden I start thinking about, “Who was it? Is it my mom? Is it, who is it? What’s happening?” And that’s really where we started to kind of have this conversation of, “It can’t receive notifications during instructional time and then for elementary and middle school during the whole school day,” right? And it needs to be stowed away. It’s just so easy to grab it and it just becomes habit, right?

It just, it really does. And I notice it. I’m like, wow, we need to have this policy for our cabinet meetings and our principal meetings. No, probably not.

But I think– I think you’re right. It’s the same for adults. I usually have mine put away for board meetings, but every once in a while, I’ll pull it out to take a photo and forget to put it away, and it buzzes.

And then I’m like– put it aside. But then I’m like, “Wait, is my house burning down, what’s going on?” And it just takes you off. So I think the same thing the kids are struggling with, the students are struggling with, we as adults struggle with it too. And I think it’s good for us to recognize that this isn’t just a student problem.

This is anybody with an electronic device problem.

Wendy Dau: That’s exactly right. I’m just trying to help the kids kind of develop this– like you said, Jennifer, a life skill set, right? This isn’t just for school. It’s going to be forever.

Jennifer Partridge: Maybe as the educators and the parents, we can show solidarity with especially our high schoolers who are adjusting. Right? And like they now have phone-free times built into their day. How can we maybe do the same for ourselves? See what difference in them– we can talk to each other about it, right?

Wendy Dau: I think that’s a great idea. What other things have been concerns that came up? Like I know at the elementary school, there’s been some concerns about the Gab watches and pieces like that.

Talk a little bit about how an elementary parent might be responding to this and how we could help them. What are some of the concerns we need to be aware of as a district to help ease the concerns of parents?

Gina Hales: Okay. I know we have one parent who’s contacted us a couple of times very respectfully about two working parents, and they need to be able to tell their child where to go to pick them up.

And that’s all very– I think those are good concerns, right? When she wrote the last time, I was thinking, I thought we took care of that. And I think we did. I went back and looked, and I did, so they can’t have it on their person. It just can’t receive notifications during the school day. So I think as long as we have that, that that will put these parents minds at ease.

And I will say that I’ve been in elementary schools before– before the policy before even we’re talking about the policy– I was in an elementary school, there was a student in the principal’s office, and I was meeting with the principal– the phone on the watch was going off constantly, like– I don’t know who was calling them, but almost constantly the watch was going off.

And so I think it is– it’s a concern for the school, but it’s also a concern for the parents. I feel like we struck kind of a middle ground. As long as the notifications are off, it will be okay for them. Because my daughter has one that she doesn’t use that often, but she forgets to put it back on after school.

And then I’m texting her, and then I think she’s dead, right?

Венди Дау: Верно.

Gina Hales: Because you’re going to go to the worst possible thing.

Wendy Dau: Right. Exactly.

Gina Hales: Like she’s– someone’s kidnapped her. But I think that the way that it is now, I think is good– that they can have it on as long as it’s silenced. As far as cell phones go and earbuds, headphones.

I don’t think in the elementary school they need those, so I’m okay with that, but I think having the device on their arm should be able to ease parents’ concerns.

Jennifer Partridge: And we also talked about that teachers at the beginning and the end of the day can take just a minute. Remind them, at the beginning of the day, everything should be– the appropriate things in the backpack, right?

The watch could be on, but no notifications. And then at the end of the day, if you did take your watch off, go put it back on, or turn on your notifications again, right? That we can take the time to do that. Another concern I have heard, and it’s with the watches, some of the elementary schools are concerned because in the past, they’ve had students with watches who will go to the bathroom and then suddenly mom’s coming to pick them up from school without communicating fully what the needs might be and things like that.

And so the schools are concerned, “Is it okay still to let them have their watch on?” Because are we going to keep seeing that? Like, we would love if there’s an issue, like, let’s teach our students how to talk to the teacher about it. Go to the office, call mom and dad if there’s something to talk about, right?

Not just going to the bathroom and being secret about it. And so I’m curious how we’re going to keep working through this and navigating this that maybe devices. Stay in the classroom when you go to the bathroom, even if it is a watch. I’m not sure quite how the schools are going to work that out, but I think that’s something to be aware of.

Wendy Dau: I think one of the suggestions that came from one of the elementary principals is if the parents, usually when they have those watches, they can control when the notifications are on and off, so they need to help us with this like during the school day, they’re off. So it’ll automatically go on when the end of school happens, and then the student, even if they tried to go to the bathroom, can’t contact them.

Some parents obviously are going to be more cooperative in that particular aspect of things, but I think that also warrants a conversation then, if that parent is showing up to say to the parent, “Did your child notify you while they were in the bathroom? And let’s talk about this.”Like, we have a lot of people in our schools that are there to help our students, and we need to help them problem solve in that moment rather than always assuming that– that only mom can handle it, or only dad can handle it. And sometimes that’s going to be the case, and we get that, but making sure, like you said, that the school is aware of the situation because then they can partner with the parent on how best to meet the needs of the student so that it’s not just, “We’re just removing the student, not giving them the skills that they need to work through whatever’s happening.”

I think we are, we’re going to still have these tricky things to work out, right? Like the watches. The concern was also at the high school. I was over at Provo High, and a teacher asked, “Well, they need their cell phone to go to the bathroom.” And I’m like, “Why do you need your cell phone to go to the bathroom?”

No, you don’t. So they said, well, sometimes people may take their backpack to the bathroom. Say, for example, a girl may take a bag to the bathroom, right? And so then a teacher just piped in and said, “I have little cubbies in my classroom, and the student just puts their cell phone in the cubby, takes the backpack, and then when they come back, they put the cell phone back into their backpack.” And I thought those are some really creative ways to problem solve all of that And so we just have to share that information to different individuals.

Gina Hales: I think there’s some valid concerns about having phones in bathrooms. And so I think that’s a question– that’s a great way– it’s good to hear that there’s already teachers problem solving. And I think our district is good about sharing these ideas, right? What different teachers are doing, and then the principals can share with each other. And so I like to hear that they’re sharing their ideas.

Wendy Dau: Yeah. It was also great to hear Principal Alvarez was– teachers were concerned about, “Am I going to have to stop class and email the parent to notify them that I took their phone?” And what Provo High did is they just created a Google Form. The teacher just fills out the Google Form with the cell phone number on it.

It gets sent in, and then there’s a person in the office that immediately emails the parent to say, ” By the way, your child’s phone is locked up.” So they’ve already figured out those systems and how that works. So hopefully it doesn’t burden anybody too much. Jennifer Partridge: Right. And that’s great to hear, and I know that was a concern for some parents, like, thinking about the teacher, like, “I don’t, I don’t want this to be a burden on the teacher.”

But really, even that 30 seconds to type in that Google Doc in the end, enforcing the policy is going to free up so much in their classroom that they can do so much more in helping our kids learn.

Wendy Dau: That’s exactly right. What do you hope that this will do for our overall school district in terms of– you mentioned the strategic plan– how does this fit in with all of those particular things that we’re working on as a district, and what are you hoping in a few months?

You’re going to hear from parents, students, from our student advisory council, as well as from teachers?

Gina Hales: I hope to continue hearing what Jennifer mentioned that in the PTA meeting she went to, that she’s getting good feedback, and that students are relieved. I’d love to hear more from students. I’d love for students to recognize that it’s a relief that they can concentrate on learning.

And I would love to hear the teacher saying that it’s helping them get the message across. I just– I want to see that the learning has improved. And I think that goes along with our strategic plan. But not just that, I’m a mental health professional. I hope that this helps a little bit with the mental health.

Because I know that devices weigh on my own mental health, and I hope it really helps these students with their mental health and with the classroom learning environment. So I’m hoping that I’m hearing from all of the levels: administrators, teachers, parents, and students that this– that maybe there’s some hiccups. That’s okay. But I want to hear that it’s making their mental health and their classroom experience better.

Jennifer Partridge: I agree completely, and in addition, I just envision walking into classrooms at all levels– we already think about this a lot at elementary, right? You walk in, the students are engaged, doing different activities, and learning is fun and enjoyable. And by the time they get to high school, they lose a lot of that. And some of that’s just the age and the nature of the subjects and things like that, too. But I still want to walk into a high school classroom and just see that engagement and see the teachers involving them in these projects where they are totally focused and just enjoying learning.

Wendy Dau: I think that’s all of our hopes, right? What would you tell a parent if they have specific feedback that they want to provide, whether it be positive or maybe suggestions of hiccups that they’re noticing that they want us to be aware of? Where do we want them to go to provide that information?

Gina Hales: If there’s a concern, I’d love to see them going to where the concern is, and then coming to me. I’m happy to help, but I’d love to see them going to the– the classroom or the principal or whomever. And I’d love to hear both the positive and the negative feedback, if there is any. I’d love to be hearing it directly from people, but also, like I said– and if the teacher’s doing a great job, and it’s working well in the classroom, I would love for the teacher to specifically get that feedback.

It’s great for me to see it, but I’m not the one who’s doing it day in and day out. So I’m happy to pass it along, but it’s going to be more powerful if they go to the person where it’s happening.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. Yeah, I think it is important for us to reinforce that we’re seeing positive things as a result of it. And if we can get that into the hands of the people that are doing the hard work, that makes a huge difference. And I think if there are ways in which we can help, you know, I think whatever that looks like– going to a principal, coming to one of you to just say, “Hey, this is something I’ve noticed.” Then, that’s something that we can start to address. And you can get that to us as a district office and we can work on that.

Jennifer Partridge: And I’m sure we have a lot of our teachers listening to this podcast as well. And so if they have feedback, you know, I would hope that they would share that with their principals, who can then get that to us. Because as Gina mentioned before, we feel really good about this policy, but there might need to be some tweaking, whether it’s the policy itself or on how we are implementing it, which some of those are school, site-based decisions, and some of it might be a district-wide kind of decision– but we do want that feedback. And if it is just totally positive, we’d love to hear that too, because there has been a lot of work gone into it. And I would love to hear the teachers are happy and and then it’s working well.

Gina Hales: We don’t always get the positive side of things, so it’d be great if you’re having a positive experience, let the teacher know and shoot a copy us on the email.

Wendy Dau: I think that’d be great. It’s always great to hear that positive feedback. Well, I know that from what I’ve heard from principals and teachers, they’re very appreciative that so much thought was put into this and that they feel very supported. I think it’s sending a message that the work that they put into preparing lessons, the work that they do with their students, is very much acknowledged and appreciated and that we’re trained to support that and create those environments where kids can succeed and where the teachers can feel effective and be effective.

Gina Hales: I do hope that the teachers and the school-level administrators feel that one of the reasons that we did this was to be supportive to them and not, “I’m trying to be very careful about my own overreach, right?”

Wendy Dau: Right, yeah.

Gina Hales: And I’m hoping they don’t feel that this is overreach, and they feel that we are trying to support them because that’s really what we’re trying to do, support them and have good learning environments.

Wendy Dau: I agree. Well, thank you so much for being on this week’s podcast and for talking about our electronic devices policy. So far, everyone out there listening, we have not confiscated that many cell phones. We have not locked very many up. So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m going to hope that that number stays really low.

Jennifer Partridge: It’s going to keep going lower and lower, right?

Wendy Dau: Yep. We just get used to it and it just becomes part of what we do, and how we do business in our schools. So. But thank you so much for your time. It’s a pleasure to talk with you today.

Thank you everyone for joining me for this week’s episode of What’s up with the Sup’.

As always, all episodes will be posted on the district website, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcasts. If you have any topics or questions you would like us to discuss on the podcast, please email us at podcast.provo.edu. Don’t forget to join us again next week for another new episode of What’s Up with the Sup’.

Thanks, everybody.