{"id":136195,"date":"2026-06-26T18:47:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T00:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-school-district-to-update-cellphone-policy\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T02:15:37","slug":"mancos-school-district-to-update-cellphone-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-school-district-to-update-cellphone-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos School District to update cellphone policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A student survey showed that many students wish to be allowed to use headphones at certain times during the school day. (Courtesy of Mancos School District)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Mancos School District is working to update its current phone policy and is accepting feedback from parents, students and staff until Friday, July 10.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s current policy was adopted in 2022 as a Colorado Association of School Boards core policy adoption and revised in September 2024.<\/p>\n

The policy bars students from using or displaying their cellphones during class at any time. While high school students are permitted to use their phones at lunch or during passing periods, middle school and elementary school students are not permitted to use or show their cellphones at any point during the school day.<\/p>\n

On June 15, Board of Education President Tim Hunter said the new proposed policy would prohibit high school students from using their cellphones during passing periods, which are still considered instructional time, and students would continue to be allowed to use their phones during lunch.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team will continue to review feedback and look at all of the options for creating an operational system\u00a0that supports our staff and students through mid-July,\u201d Superintendent Audrey Hazleton told The Journal<\/em>. \u201cWe want to be responsive to staff, student and parent concerns while also ensuring that we have distraction free learning environments and a connected school community all\u00a0day.\u201d<\/p>\n

2025-26 student school board members Greta Thompson and Rhett Brown created a survey for their peers earlier this year that showed the existing cellphone policy is the most popular policy among students.<\/p>\n

When asked what students wanted to see changed in the policy, Brown told the Journal<\/em> that students are fine with the current policy, and are mainly hoping to see one specific change.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I have heard, most students are comfortable with the current policy,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThe only significant change I heard students support was allowing headphones to be used in class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson brought up student sentiments in a meeting earlier this year, telling the school board that students wished to be permitted to use headphones during times when instruction isn\u2019t taking place or while working on homework.<\/p>\n

Brown said the current policy \u201cworks well overall,\u201d but noted that the enforcement of the policy is another issue \u2013 one that leads to confusion for students.<\/p>\n

Some teachers allow phone use during class and others don\u2019t, he said. That causes confusion. Students assume start assuming phones are permitted in all classes and they start to push teachers\u2019 boundaries.<\/p>\n

He said the school should focus on ensuring the current policy is enforced consistently, not to further restrict phone use.<\/p>\n

Student reactions to the new proposed policy is different from the sentiment toward the current policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegarding that proposed policy, I have not heard a single positive comment about it from anyone,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged the district\u2019s invitation to hear students\u2019 voices on the matter, but said he didn\u2019t think student voices were represented or considered in the development of the new policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudent voices were not represented well in the development of the new policy,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIt often feels as if the district conducts surveys to make students believe their opinions will be considered, only to later disregard the majority\u2019s feedback. If student input is being requested, it should be genuinely considered and reflected in the final decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

bduran@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Staff, parents and students can provide feedback until July 10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[28,83,392,29,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-136195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-mancos-school-district-re-6","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136216,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136195\/revisions\/136216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136195"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=136195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}