HUNTSVILLE — Instead of being banned and confiscated, students may find their cell phones replacing books soon.

Huntsville Independent School District Board of Trustees members heard an update Thursday on the district's BYOD initiative. Bring Your Own Devices would have students using cell phones as instructional tools during classroom time, as well as using them to access the Internet while at home.

Tracy Simental, HISD director of technology, was in Austin Thursday and used her own brand of tech-savvy instruction to Skype in to the board meeting while giving the BYOD presentation. Simental said the district is working closely with AT&T to ensure that students have access to affordable smart phones and data plans. For those students who don't have home Internet access, there's even a “puck” device that students can check-out from the school to access the Internet from home.

From now through August, HISD will be coordinating with parents of students in the 6th through 11th grades who will be in 7th through 12th next year about the program and its pros and cons.

“We're working on finding cheap devices and affordable rate plans,” Simental said. “Once we have board approval, we will work to expand our online curriculum content.”

Simental said there will be wireless expansion at both Mance Park Middle School and Huntsville High School to ensure devices will work across both campuses.

HISD Superintendent Dr. Steve Johnson said this initiative will move the district forward in keeping with education trends across the nation. Students in 6th through 11th grades were surveyed this year about their use of technological devices at school and home.

“85 percent of our students have some type of technical device,” he said. “This is going to enable us to use technology in a whole different way. This is an arena that's going to have a lot of different obstacles to make it a reality.”

School board members raised concerns about teacher training and cell phone charging stations, which Simental said have been considered.

Board member Larry Thornton said he wasn't the first to jump on the technology bandwagon, but now that he's got a smart phone, he can't imagine life without it.

“I think it's going to be great when we get everybody on board,” he said of the BYOD initiative. “They're a great, great learning tool.”

Teaching children how to find information, as opposed to teaching the information itself, is the wave of the future, Johnson said.

“We're dealing with 21st century learners,” he said. “They access materials in a different way than I did when I was in school. This is the future and we need to make sure we prepare our kids. We're excited about this and we want to ask for patience from the public and the board as we move forward.”

Board members also heard a presentation on changes in school policies. For the 2012-13 school year, Huntsville High School will be moving from an eight class day to seven periods. Currently, class times are 48 minutes with a 30-minute lunch. Next year, students will be in class for 58 minutes each with a 30-minute lunch.

Because many students were taking study hall or serving as teacher's aides during one of the class periods, Johnson said he felt that moving to seven class times would not be an issue for most students.

“We discovered (fluff) when we were doing reductions last year,” he said. “There's not any when we go into a seven period day.”

In other business, Sherri Barrett was honored as employee of the month while Rick Burns was named educator of the month.

Barrett is the Huntsville High School piano accompanist for the choir program and is the assistant director for the choir program.

Shannon Duncan, HISD public information officer, said Barrett is active with choir, as well as the glee club, theater and band programs.

“Her involvement and commitment is endless,” Duncan said. “The success the choir program has had this year and since Sherri has been at HHS is due in large part to her talent, effort and concern for the program and students.”

Burns, a social studies teacher at HHS, was noted as being a “lifelong learner,” with a strong work ethic.

“He is unselfish with his time, always willing to help out wherever he is needed,” Duncan said. “He has taught special ed and life skills classes, currently teaching US history and pre-AP world history as well as serving as the head freshman basketball coach and JV basketball coach. Rick is a teacher first and foremost.”

The next regular board meeting of the HISD Board of Trustees will be at 6 p.m. May 17 at Huntsville High School.