The Las Cruces Public Schools will host a town hall-style meeting on Thursday, August 14th at 6pm at the Dr. Karen M. Trujillo Administration Complex. The meeting is to inform parents and community members about the growing dangers of social media, and to explain the district’s decision to join a national lawsuit against several major social media companies. Scott Brocato recently spoke with Kelly Jameson, Director of Communication with Las Cruces Public Schools, about the lawsuit and other topics involving the school district.
Scott Brocato:
First, let's talk about the town hall meeting about the growing dangers of social media and how those affect students. What are some of those dangers?
Kelly Jameson:
Well, what we're understanding since this law firm brought it to our attention, they made a presentation at a recent LCPS school board meeting. Our Board of Education was brought to the attention that there are a number of detrimental effects that social media has on our students. And you have heard them, I've heard them; we've probably experienced them without even knowing: the doom scrolling, the increased levels of our numbers of depression among students that are associated with social media. And really, what this lawsuit hopes to bring to light is some accountability on behalf of those social media companies, companies that you know, like Meta and ByteDance and Snapchat, and hopefully hold them accountable to put some safeguards in place so that our students aren't as addicted to social media as we see them today.
Scott Brocato:
Well, that's going to be part of the town hall: explaining the district's decision to join that national lawsuit. I believe it's 500 school districts that are part of the lawsuit?
Kelly Jameson:
That sounds about right. When we first learned about it, there were over 200 school districts and the number is growing. And this is a nationwide class action lawsuit that we understand is taking place.
Scott Brocato:
And why did it cross over into a lawsuit? Do know what the tipping point was?
Kelly Jameson:
Not specifically. Some of the talking points that the law firm has had with us is that litigation sometimes brings accountability, and nothing will move the needle quicker than filing something in court. You can make requests, and you can kindly ask the safeguards be put in place or that policies change within those companies. But they're privately held companies, so really there isn't any accountability until you show up in court. So hopefully this is what it will take, and it will be a smooth process.
Scott Brocato:
And what is the official cell phone policy at LCPS and classrooms?
Kelly Jameson:
We just switched to a more strict cell phone policy this school year. The state of New Mexico had offered incentives for districts to design policies to curb cell phone usage so that there are no cell phones allowed in class. The Las Cruces Public Schools has left that decision up to principals. High schools, there is some leniency if teachers feel like they could be of use to students as a memory aid or as a research device, they're allowed to use their phones. There are no phones allowed in middle school from bell to bell. At the high school level, you can use them during lunch periods unless otherwise noted by a teacher; and our elementary schools have similar policies to high school, but we don't see cell phones as as prolific as we do in high school and middle school.
Scott Brocato:
Well, something else that's being brought back: the “Count Me In” high school attendance campaign. For those who aren't familiar with it, talk about that.
Kelly Jameson:
That was an initiative that happened about 10 years ago, and it was through a partnership with a local dealership here in town, Sisbarro dealerships, where they would donate a car, and we would use that as an incentive for better attendance. So students that had perfect attendance would be entered into a chance to win a car at the end of the school year. It was open to high school seniors, and we've since revamped that program. It's now open to all high school students and it's a chance to win cash. So instead of the car, it's the same monetary value, but we've taken a $10,000 donation from Sisbarro dealerships, and we've divided it up into quarters and given students a chance to win money in exchange for better attendance.
Scott Brocato:
Anything else you would like to add that is going on at LCPS?
Kelly Jameson:
There's always new stuff going on at Las Cruces Public Schools!
Parents, if you didn't hear about the new two-way communication app that we adopted over the summer, it's called ParentSquare, and it's wildly popular this year. You can download it on your smartphone, but if you choose not to, you still get the information just as you always did. The unique thing about this is it's two-way communication, so when you received a notice last semester through e-mail or through a cell phone notification, you didn't have the opportunity to respond and now you do. So we would like to thank those parents that have downloaded it to stay in regular communication with LCPS.
We also initiated a new weather app, a new weather station system into our school district. It's called Perry Weather. So if you have a student in the district, you can go to their school's website and there's a link right in the center of the page where you can see actual temperature and weather updates on the school campus. This is important in the event of weather-related issues like lightning in the area. We know that this leads to delayed dismissals or shelters in place, and that can be frustrating for parents because we've known that thunderstorms typically happen in the afternoons, always around dismissal time. So we just like to remind parents that that is an option for them if they want to check the weather at their child's school. You can also see our inclement weather protocols on our website: lcps.net
Scott Brocato:
Kelly Jameson, director of communications with LCPS, thanks for coming in and talking with us at KRWG Public Media.
Kelly Jameson:
Thanks Scott.
