Cell phones, contact lenses banned for 08-09 school year

For the upcoming school year, there will be a few changes in the 2008-2009 Vermilion Parish School Board Student/Parent Handbook.

Four of the biggest changes will deal with cell phones, graduations, Teachers’ Bill of Rights and colored contact lenses.

Cell phones are not allowed on campus and if a student is caught with one, the phone is taken away and the parent is called to pick the cell phone up. The student receives in-school suspension the first time for having a cell phone. On the second offense, the parent is called again to pick up the phone and the student receives out-of-school suspension.

The cell phone change in the handbook will be if a student is caught with a cell phone the second time, the phone will be taken away by the school and held until the end of school. A parent can pick up the phone when school ends.

School Board member Charles Campbell had a hard time understanding why a parent can not control their child from bringing a cell phone to school the second time.

“We are putting too much on the employees at the school,” Campbell said. “If I had a kid who brings the cell phone to school, and it is taken away and the parents pick it up, you mean to tell me that a parent can not control their kid. The parent should tell their kid he will not get their cell phone back and bring it to school. It is the parent who has to tell their kid they can’t bring the cell phone, not the principal.”

North Vermilion Principal Greg Theriot told the board members that at a Dallas high school, the school sells its cell phones back to the students for $15 after taking them. The school raised $10,000 for the year.

The board members tossed around the idea, but decided not to act on it.

The School Board has a policy that all students who enter a high school prom, homecoming dance, Sadie Hawkins dance have to take alcohol breath test into a Breathalyzer before entering. If a student refuses to take the test or they fail it, the student can not enter into the dance.

That same policy now applies to high school graduations. Seniors who are about to walk for graduation will have to breath into a Breathalyzer before walking. If they fail, they will not be able to walk with their class.

Starting the upcoming school year, each school will display the state’s “Teacher Bill of Rights.”

It is three-page document explaining what right a teacher has and will be displayed where everyone can read it.

Another change deals with contact lenses. Students will not be able to wear cosmetic contact lenses that change the appearance of the eyes (changes them from brown to blood red or tiger eyes) and are not prescribed lenses.