Richmond 8th District School Board Race - 2024

As Richmond’s first state resource officer, back in ’95, I’ve been able to work with schools, and you could even see that what that instantaneous, that spontaneous disruption does to a classroom. And even back then, in the mid-90’s, this was a person-to-person thing. Now we’re in this digital, technological age. It’s all across the internet. 

And so we’ve got two things we have to look at. We have the challenge, first of all, to keep teachers in control of their classrooms. As long as you’ve got that spontaneity, that a person can pick up a phone and talk to anybody, anywhere, anytime - you disrupt the class. 

But there’s also that catalyst. It serves as the catapult for things to occur. And so I’m totally in favor of banning it. As for how we arrive at it, how we arrive at it is not as important as making sure we are all together in getting it done, because what’s the board’s decision is. We may not be successful at the first attempt, but once we make it clear that this is the way we need to go, and this is what we need to do. The board, that’s their job to do - come together, and come to a conclusion. 

As a chaplain I see what it does. It escalates problems. When you talk about people sending a message saying “it’s on sight,” meaning whenever they see you there’s going to be a fight, or some type of altercation or a meet-up...

There are a number of different things that our kids are utilizing the cell phones for, so we need to, again, look at the policy to make sure we’re implementing a policy that’s going to be fair, that’s going to be just, and that’s going to be one that’s effective.