Step one: Get cell phone use under control in Hillsborough schools.

Step two: Consider privileges like letting students use them during lunch.

The approach likely will first require students to follow the rules and keep cell phones off during school hours. That means cell phones should be out of sight, agreed a group of teachers, administrators and parents reviewing the issue Monday. If not, there will be consequences, an area where Hillsborough schools now lack consistency, said Lewis Brinson, assistant superintendent of administration.

Next school year, the rules could look like this:

1st violation: Warning.

2nd violation: Another warning, phone confiscated until parent picks it up.

3rd violation: Another warning and student sent to in-school suspension.

4th violation: Student suspended out of school.

The ideas that came out of Monday's work session are hardly written in stone. Participants used smiley face stickers and stickey notes to mark up oversized sheets of paper with answer to questions like "Should cell phones be allowed in classrooms?" and "Should students be allowed to display the cell phones?"

High school students were invited to the meeting, but none made it. School administrators plan a similar exercise with high school student leaders later in the week.

Brinson said school officials would like to  see new procedures in place to control cell phone abuse for the next school year. He plans to bring the final recommendations to the School Board on May 20.

And school officials hear loud and clear that students want to be able to use their phones during lunch. The district may leave the window open for a mid-year change, as an incentive, perhaps, once students prove they're able to use cell phones responsibly.