By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Hays Middle School will be ordering new locks for its lockers this summer and is proposing to make their use mandatory.

The move is a part of a policy to keep cell phones out of classrooms during the school day. The school board heard about the proposed policy change during its meeting Monday.

The school will require cell phones to be locked in lockers between 8:09 a.m. and 3:04 p.m. unless faculty or administration give students permission otherwise.

The district already had a cell phone policy in place, but Craig Pallister, HMS principal, admitted that students did not have secure places to put their devices.

The locks also will help the school secure iPads, which are issued to the students. Pallister said the locked lockers will give students a place to put the iPads while they are attending classes during which they don’t use the devices, such as band or PE.

HMS’s cell phone policy states that if phones are taken away for violations of the cell phone policy, students will be able to pick up the phones at the end of the school day.

A second violation would require a parent to pick up the phone between 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.

A third violation would require a parent to pick up the phone and sign that the student loses his or her right to have a cell phone at the school for the remainder of the school year.

If a student has a cell phone after a third violation, he or she will be assigned in-school suspension for one day for each violation after the third.

Pallister said the decision to add the locks and refine the policy was arrived at after much discussion with other schools on their policies.

He said the goal of the policy is to maximize education time in the classroom.

He noted one phone that had been confiscated chimed 40 times with Snapchat updates while setting on a secretary’s desk in the office.

“Teachers do not have time to work with all the cell phones during the hour,” Pallister said.

The policy change is part of handbook revisions, which will be voted on at the school board’s next meeting on June 26.