School Board president excited for elementary, middle schools, but concerned for changes at the high school
Newcastle Public Schools’ policy on cell phones and wireless telecommunications devices has been changed to conform with a new State law. Students are now prohibited from using cell phones and electronic devices while on campus during school days.
The change has Board of Education President Tiffany Elcyzyn elated for the younger grades, but concerned for the high school.
The only exceptions to the rule, as outlined in the policy, are for emergency use where communication is needed for safety or urgent personal matters including medical emergencies, natural disasters or lockdowns to communicate with law enforcement or family, the monitoring of health issues such as glucose monitoring, and if a student with special needs uses their device for assistance for medical or technological purposes.
The Newcastle Schools’ policy states that students found to be using personal electronic devices for illegal purposes, violations of privacy, or to cheat on tests, will be subject to discipline and the device may be confiscated and then returned at the end of the day.
Following an incident, the student violating the rule may be disallowed from carrying a device at school. Any student found to be in violation of the schools’ policy will be disciplined on a case-by-case basis.
The policy was approved by the Newcastle School Board in their June meeting. They took the action because of the new State law signed by Governor Kevin Stitt in May, which bans the student cell phone use in all Oklahoma public schools for the 2025-26 school year.
A story by Oklahoma Voice reporter Nuria Martinez-Keel indicates that the restriction becomes optional for school districts in the 2026-27 school year and thereafter.
Elcyzyn said the new policy is “messy” for Newcastle Public Schools because of the changes that have been made over the years as cell phone use became more and more popular.
Elcyzyn said it’s complicated because NPS already has a ban in place at the lower elementary school. The ban has been implemented over the last two years at the upper elementary and the middle school where, she said, cell phones have been a huge distraction and caused problems.
The board president added that at Newcastle High School, phones have been used for the students’ chat platforms, for their infinite campus, and for various classroom work and activities.
“The high schoolers are spread out at up to 13-14 different locations during a school day, and you don’t have an intercom,” she said. “The students were checking their infinite campus on their cell phones and getting messages.”
Elcyzn said all these things can be done by a student on their Chrome book, but it will be difficult to check messages between classes.
The school board president was also concerned about the teachers having to enforce the new policy.
“As a school board member I don’t want to hold the teachers to policing it,” Elcyzyn said, “but the State is holding us hostage on that and they want the teachers to police it.”
Elcyzyn said phones create a lot of problems in general, but at the high school level they have been used intentionally and purposefully as a
tool. “That’s where it gets convoluted,” she said. “We’ve spent all these years navigating through the technology and now we are having to put down one of those resources.”
Another problem special to Newcastle Schools is that the students’ Chromebooks are now five years old.
“We have been working towards putting a plan into place to replace those,” Elcyzyn said. “Taking the cell devices out of the puzzle, those Chromebooks are now required to be used as the resource.”
