As students prepare to return to class, school boards in Ottawa and across Ontario will have to contend with a provincial ban on vape pens and tougher restrictions on cellphones.
Earlier this year, Ontario’s Minister of Education Stephen Lecce announced new restrictions aimed at cutting down on distractions in the classroom.
Students from kindergarten to Grade 6 will now be required to keep their phones on silent and “out of sight” for the entire school day, unless they’re granted special permission. Students in Grades 7 to 12 won’t be permitted to use their cellphones during class without permission.
Vaping is also banned in all schools, along with tobacco, nicotine and cannabis products.
It’s a move welcomed by some Ottawa parents whose children returned to French public school board classrooms Tuesday.
“We already are seeing the kind of negative impacts that they have on on children, their well-being, their attention spans, their mental health,” said Ari Grandsman, whose child attends Francojeunesse Public Elementary School in Sandy Hill.
3rd strike earns a call home
Christian-Charle Bouchard, director of education for Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario, said staff and principals have been trained on the new rules.
If a child is caught using a cellphone without permission, a teacher will take the phone, put it in a secure place and then return it to the student at the end of class.
If the student is caught a second time, the phone will be surrendered to the principal until the end of the school day. After a third transgression, the child’s parents will be called to the school to pick up the cellphone.
“That will give us a chance to chat with the parents and see how we can better help the kids,” said Bouchard.
Students won’t be left without technology entirely, Bouchard noted.
“We have Chromebooks, we have tools for them to use. So there will be technology in the classroom, but there will not be those personal devices that could distract them,” he said.
Officials with the region’s French Catholic board, Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est, said there are already restrictions and bans in place at a number of its schools.
“If there are exceptions to be made, the teacher will always have that [discretion],” said Superintendent Jason Dupuis. “I figure that a lot of our teachers this year will decide not to allow it, but they have that freedom.”
‘Not about catching students’
In an effort to prepare families for the start of school next week, officials with the Ottawa Catholic School Board sent home letters outlining the changes and what they’ll mean for students.
The board’s director of education Tom D’Amico said the new restrictions are unlikely to eliminate this behaviour completely, however.
While certain steps will be take if students are caught flouting the rules, D’Amico said the focus this year will be about educating kids on the harmful affects of these habits.
“It really is about changing behaviours, not about catching students,” he said.
The board will also provide training for staff and workshops for parents so they can be better informed when speaking with the children.
Officials with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the city’s largest, declined CBC’s requests for an interview, but noted it had updated its policies in June to reflect the new provincial mandates