(Beaver Dam) Beaver Dam Unified School District superintendent voiced his support for an educational standards package that Wisconsin Assembly Republicans recently passed. The package includes legislation that will realign statewide testing standards back to national levels and ban the use of cellphones by students during class time.
Superintendent Mark DiStefano says many districts, including Beaver Dam, already have policies in place to restrict cellphone use during instructional time.
“But what this bill would do is essentially make sure that every district across the state of Wisconsin is making sure that during instructional time students are not using cellphones,” says DiStefano. “Unless there could be exceptions…we might have students that from a medical need maybe monitoring blood sugar where they might need to reference personal communication device just to make sure they’re healthy and safe that way. But those are things that we don’t object to…I think those are really potentially great bills.”
DiStefano says the goal is to eliminate distractions while helping improve students’ mental well-being.
