The Pocatello/Chubbuck School District will be piloting an online high school this fall, a district administrator announced at a board work session Tuesday. 

The program will have space for about 180 students across the district’s three traditional high schools. 

Sue Pettit, the district’s secondary education director, said counselors and administrators are reaching out to students who have left the district for online instruction to “see if we can get them to come back” in hopes of boosting enrollment. 

This school year, the district’s enrollment hit its lowest point in more than a decade. District officials say that could be due to a number of factors, from a declining birth rate to more students opting for charter, private or home schooling.

The enrollment dip and ensuing budgetary gap contributed to trustees’ controversial decision to close an elementary school. Since then, the district has launched a marketing campaign with the tagline “You Belong Here,” in an effort to attract more students. 

Pettit said the online school is being started slowly to ensure quality: “There needs to be a soft start so we can be successful at it.”

District teachers are creating the online curriculum to ensure it matches the rigor of a classroom experience. In the fall, they will still teach in-person classes and have one class period dedicated to online courses, Pettit said. 

For now, the online program will only offer general education classes at the high school level. But it’s possible the program could expand to the middle school level over time, Pettit said. 

Traditional districts adopting online schools has become more common, and a handful of East Idaho districts already do so, including Bonneville, Snake River, Sugar-Salem and Bear Lake.

Pocatello inches toward adopting more restrictive cellphone policy

Pocatello/Chubbuck school trustees are inching toward adopting a more restrictive cellphone policy — a decision they’ll make at their next regular meeting on May 20. 

While cellphones are already prohibited during class time, the policy has been implemented unevenly across schools, district leaders have said. Under the new policy, all schools would be expected to adhere to the changes. 

The proposed policy calls for students to have devices turned off, out of sight, and stored in a locker, backpack, bag or vehicle during the school day, including class periods, passing periods, recess and assemblies. The one exception would be that high school students could use devices during their lunch periods. 

Trustees have discussed the potential change at multiple public meetings, including at Tuesday’s work session, and have solicited feedback from district staff, parents and patrons. 

Trustees seem to be in agreement that students should not have cellphones out during class, but have disagreed over whether they should be allowed to access them in passing periods or at lunch. 

At an April 8 meeting, Trustee Raymond Knoff expressed concerns that parents would be upset about not being able to text or call their children during passing time between classes. And on Tuesday, he cited a number of studies on restricting student cell phone use and argued that “we need to be teaching children about appropriate use of phones rather than simply banning them.”

Trustee Heather Clarke countered that “there is a time and place” to teach children about proper cellphone use, and “school is not one of them.”

Holly Lacey, a vice principal at Pocatello High, said her school implemented a strict cellphone policy mid-year due to an uptick in mental health and behavioral issues  — from vandalism to vaping to fights — among students that were linked to “unchecked phone use.” 

“We said ‘Enough’s enough.’ We’ve got to protect our learning environment,” she told trustees. “We’ve got to protect the mental health of these kids and really take on the responsibility of cracking down on cell phone use.”

Lacey said the initiative has been successful and is already having a positive impact on students. 

Mary Anne McGrory, president of the Pocatello Education Association, said most of the 217 teachers who responded to a survey about the policy change were in favor of it. 

School districts statewide are implementing more restrictive cell phone policies, after a new law was passed requiring districts to do so, and amid pressure from Gov. Brad Little and State Superintendent Debbie Critchfield.