How school cellphone bans are, and aren’t, working : NPR
Madelyn Whitt (left) and Quani’e Lanier read in the school library at Academy @ Shawnee, a magnet middle and high school in Louisville, Kentucky. With cell phones banned at their school, students find other ways to pass the time.
Lydia Schweickart for NPR
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Lydia Schweickart for NPR
How to get teens to put their phones away for hours? That’s the question many schools are trying to address as bans on cell phones spread across the United States — more than 30 states now limit their use during the school day.
One such state is Kentucky, where all public school classes must now be cellphone-free. Districts can set their own policies to achieve this goal. Some collect phones at the start of each class; others allow students to take them only during their lunch period.
The Jefferson County School District, which includes Louisville, has implemented a “bell to bell” policy, choosing to keep students phone-free from the time they enter the building until they leave at the end of the day.
To see how this policy works, NPR visited Academy @ Shawnee, a magnet middle and high school in Louisville.
Students now “know the expectations”
Before the restrictions, “we didn’t even know that the majority of children were learning, because they weren’t responding.” [in class]” says Hollie Smith, now in her second year as the school’s executive director. “They were just doing things on their phones.”
Hollie Smith, executive director of Academy @ Shawnee, believes that banning cell phones in school makes students more engaged in their work and each other.
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Smith says she can see the changes throughout the school: “The kids know the expectations now. »
For one thing, there’s more talk, she says. Teachers and students feel connected. Even the cafeteria is a little noisier, animated by conversations between students disconnected from their screens.
Although she finds the initial results positive and encouraging, Smith has no illusions about what the students think: “I think they absolutely hate it. Their phone is their life, it’s their world.”
The big question, here and in thousands of schools across the country, is: Do these bans work?
In talking with educators and students at this school, there seems to be agreement – reluctant agreement on the part of some students – that it works. But not exactly as the policy predicts.
To meet the new state requirement, Shawnee invested in Yondr pouches, or locked personal pouches, to make the transition easier. The pouches, widely used in many schools, look like neoprene pouches that lock and unlock only with very strong magnets.
Academy @ Shawnee policy states that students must lock their phone in a Yondr pouch at the start of each day.
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Jefferson County’s ban echoes that of many schools and reflects what research says is the best approach to restricting cell phones in schools. “Ultimately,” Smith says, “we have to be of service to our children. And…they have to be engaged to get the service that we provide.”
Find hacks and workarounds
Jayden O’Neil, a senior at Shawnee, still doesn’t see the point. “All the students hate it,” she said. “I think they’re going to rebel more.”
When the ban came into effect in August, each student received a folder with their name on it. Immediately, O’Neil said, students began finding hacks to circumvent the system.
“Most of the kids brought a spare phone or said they didn’t have one,” she said. “Or they broke the sleeves – they opened them.”
“People had several extra phones,” added Quani’e Lanier, another senior. Some students brought old phones to hand out to their friends — decoy phones, Lanier said, to put in the pouches.
Both students are less than a semester away from graduating and are eager to move on. Lanier says she’s going to college to become a nurse. O’Neil enlisted in the Navy and will begin basic training this summer. Both say one of the big problems with the ban is that they feel like adults and should be responsible for their own property.
The new policy has rules and outlines consequences for non-compliance, including handing over your phone and calling parents.
But Lanier says those consequences “aren’t enough for people to care about.”
“I think we have become more productive”
Despite their displeasure, some students NPR spoke with said it made a difference in their classes.
Jayden O’Neil (left) and Quani’e Lanier in the school library.
Lydia Schweickart for NPR
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Lydia Schweickart for NPR
“People know they’re going to get in trouble if they don’t,” said Joseph Jolly, a student and student assistant at the library.
Nonetheless, as we were talking with students in the library, the bell rang and students began moving between classes. Through the library windows we could see kids walking and chatting, but a few were wearing headphones and one had a phone out, taking a selfie video.
Joseph Jolly, a student at the school, says that while many students don’t lock their phones in their pouches like they’re supposed to, they are much less likely to have them in class.
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But Jolly said we probably wouldn’t see the same behavior in class: “They started to really focus on work, and I think we became more productive because of that.”
In other words, the school’s established policy — that phones must be in their pouch — is largely ignored, Jolly said. When asked where his clutch was, he replied: “It’s my house, I think.”
But he adds that the new restrictions have led to a tacit agreement: that, by mutual consent, students refrain from using their phones in class and educators leave fairly alone.
Where was his phone? “Truth be told, it’s in my pocket right now,” he said. “But… I don’t do anything. That’s the problem!”
A shortage on library shelves
Anton Caldwell, Shawnee’s librarian for more than 20 years, says he knew right away the ban was working. The number of students visiting the library has increased, as has the number of books they read:
“I’ve already tripled the number of checkout trips I’ve had for all of last year, so far this school year.”
Anton Caldwell, the school librarian, created a technical room in the library.
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While the ban may not be the hard-line, cold-blooded approach to technology the district expected, he says it’s pushing students to unplug. And there are some books he just can’t keep on the shelves.
“The girls are all about Jenny Han right now,” he said. referring to the author of popular teen romances including To all the boys I’ve loved before And The summer I became pretty. “I have multiple titles of all his books, and I think I literally have one in the library right now. Because as soon as it’s checked out, it’s checked out again.”
Principal Smith says that despite differing views on policy, everyone seems to be working toward the same goal: “Are any kids on their phones? Absolutely. But they are respectful enough to keep it in their pockets or find other things to do.
