Clark County School District, CCSD, located primarily in Las Vegas, Nevada, has recently posted their new "Safety initiatives" for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year on popular social media platform, Instagram. The safety initiative that stood out to many was the new policy on students smartphones. 

The post read as follows: "Have you heard of the new safety initiatives the District is implementing to improve classroom learning and safety? Starting on the first day of school, middle and high school students will be required to wear an ID badge while on campus and will be placing their electronic devices in a signal-blocking pouch during instructional time. Watch out for communications from your child's school about procedures specific to their campus."

The ID badge has been required on most, if not all CCSD campuses for around 3 years or more. What has sparked tension is the "Signal blocking pouch" for the students smartphones. Many students and parents responded to this post on Instagram showing very clear displeasure with the policy. One person commenting "This school district is focused on completely different issues than what's ACTUALLY becoming a problem in the schools. How about more lunch funding?
Maybe improve your chrome books from breaking down every 2-3 business days?
How about better internet FOR said chrome books you insist on giving out? These are issues that ACTUALLY NEED YOUR ATTENTION. Let's let the phone policy be implemented by your teachers in their classrooms. Speaking of, how about we pay them more??? Phones should be taken away from students using them in non appropriate ways but for students with a 504 plan or IEP, they are REQUIRED to have them on hand BY LAW. Signal blocking pouches should not be permitted as the reason phones are allowed on a students hand in the first place is for emergency situations. Focus on the wellbeing of the children and teens in your district before trying to issue a district wide ban on devices that could be helpful."

Many other students asked for this funding to be put towards school lunches, which seem to be a very underfunded section in schools across the district. 

Another student commented this: "How about we focus on things more important, rather than taking away something that can be used to better the educational environment for people in CCSD. Sure, kids could use the phones for something that may be distracting or non-productive, but do us all a favor and cross that bridge when you get to it. Allow the teachers to take care of that. Some kids, like myself, find listening to music for example, an extremely good way to help me focus on my work, rather than disrupting the class by talking aloud. Teachers should take away phones if they are used in inappropriate ways, but not if they are on the kids person. Worry about more valuable things." 

I make this petition for two reasons. One of them is to ban and stop these signal blocking pouches from being used in CCSD schools. My other reason for this is to urge CCSD to fund the more important issues in their schools, such as the highlighted school lunches, chrome books, and internet issues, as well as security for the alleged bullying and harassment happening in these schools as one commenter highlighted. The comment stated: "You're worried about keeping the phones away for safety!? How about worrying about weapons on campus, bullying, fighting. That is where your concern should be! Where's the safety implementation for that?"

I urge you to share this petition on any and all platforms and I hope for a change in this system before the start of school begins. Updates will be posted as they come.

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View CCSD's original Instagram post here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9njQ7HvC-r/?igsh=b2V5eHN6dDhwa2p1