WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional Schools' superintendent last week asked the School Committee to adopt a policy banning student cell-phone use in the district's three schools.

 

Jason McCandless last Thursday told the committee that his thinking about personal electronic devices in schools has evolved over the last year.

 

As recently as last spring, McCandless told the committee that he did not feel a ban was warranted. 

 

Now, he believes that no good comes from students using cell phones in school and, in fact, significant harm comes from the social media accessed on the devices.

 

In explaining the evolution of his position, McCandless said there is a connection to the district's efforts to create a more inclusive environment, efforts that were a major topic of discussion during the three-hour meeting.

 

"There is certainly a decent amount of racist, misogynistic, hateful in many of its forms material available online through various social media platforms," McCandless said. "I think we have kids saying things that they don't have any idea what it means because they have seen them in a video.

 

"From a civil rights perspective, from an anti-racist perspective, parents can't shield their kids from everything. … There's so much that we can't control, as educators, as leaders. This piece strikes me as something we can control. We don't allow students to bring knives into school. That's because they could hurt themselves, they could hurt others.