Videos recorded by students have helped expose bullying as well as glorify school fights.
North Carolina law requires students to turn off their phones during instructional time to try to reduce outside distractions. Now the Wake County school system is considering whether it can create “whistleblower protection” that would permit students to turn on their phones to record video for safety reasons such as responding to bullying.
It’s a balancing act for school leaders who are concerned about how some students promote a “fight culture” by posting videos of fights at schools.
“What we're talking about is avoiding the fight culture but not taking away a kid’s ability to document a problem,” Wake County Superintendent Robert Taylor told the school board’s policy committee on Tuesday.
A state law that went into effect in January requires students to have their phones turned off in class unless they get a teacher’s permission to use them or have a valid medical or educational exemption. Enforcement is left up to the schools.
In Wake County, elementary and middle school students aren’t allowed to use their phones at all during the school day. But high schools can allow students to use their phones when they’re not in class, such as during lunch and in the hallways between class changes.
“When there is an incident at school and students get their phones out and they start recording, are they in violation of policy at that point?” asked school board...
The Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran on Saturday, February 28 and the resulting retaliatory strikes from Tehran saw the outbreak of the world’s newest war last weekend. On the war’s first day, Iran...