Many of the students arriving at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School on a sunny Thursday morning paused before entering the building to turn off their cellphones, lock them inside gray fabric pouches, and tuck them into their backpacks, where they would remain for the entirety of the academic day.
Outdoor speakers played pop music and Zachary Stowell, Eagle Staff’s gregarious principal, welcomed the tweens and teens and thanked them for locking up their devices — a new requirement starting this year.
“Appreciate it, man,” said Stowell to one student, followed by a fist bump. “Good job, appreciate it,” he said to another.
The school in northwest Seattle is part of an experiment playing out in districts around the nation as educators try to rein in the widespread use of smartphones on campus. Restrictions and strategies for implementation vary. Educators have a long list of reasons for wanting cellphone-free policies, but formal research is limited on the impacts of school smartphone use and the effects of bans.
Like many schools, Eagle Staff previously prohibited phones during class time unless it was part of a lesson, and allowed them to be used during breaks between classes and at lunch.
But that’s not how it played out, said Stowell and others.
The phones showed up in class and sparked a variety of distractions that included the persistent buzz of incoming text messages; students hiding earbuds under hoodies or long hair and listening to music during instruction; and kids slyly scrolling and sharing with classmates videos and images on the phones.
Other uses were more nefarious. Kids snapped photos of tests to enable cheating. They recorded videos and images from inside bathrooms and other embarrassing moments and passed them among students. Throughout the day there could be a steady stream of group chats and inflammatory texts that sometimes incited conflicts that in in class.
“A kid would receive something, open their phone, and my class is done,” said Laurie Reddy, an eighth-grade U.S. history teacher at Eagle Staff. Drama would ignite, she said, and “I can’t bring everybody back from that.”
Teachers, instead of teaching, became front-line enforcers of smartphone rules.
But educators were sometimes inconsistent in their responses, situations could become confrontational, and certain kids complained they were unfairly targeted for using devices. It created tensions between teachers as well given the different approaches to handle rule-breakers.
Misuse of phones was “the biggest behavior we were trying to intervene with,” Reddy said, adding that she was “1,000% in favor” of the new policy.
Policy precedes research
In August, the head of Washington’s public schools issued a notice to the state’s districts encouraging them to come up with plans for controlling students’ use of cellphones, calling for the policies to be implemented next school year.
Among Seattle Public Schools (SPS), Hamilton Middle School is also banning smartphone use during the day, and Rainier Beach High School is prohibiting the devices except in designated areas during lunch. The Mercer Island School District east of Seattle is banning phones during school, while the Peninsula School District to the city’s west allows their use only at lunchtime.
“Currently, school leaders create and manage their own cellphone policies because they know how technology affects the specific educational environment in their school. They also have a greater understanding of the needs of students and families in their community,” SPS said in a statement provided to GeekWire. “SPS is not considering a district-wide off-and-away-for-the-day cellphone policy at this time.”
School leaders with bans in place say they make accommodations for students with disabilities and health issues that necessitate the use of the devices.
Nationally, Louisiana and South Carolina have laws banning cellphone use during the school day, while Florida prohibits the devices during instructional time, according to Education Week. Other states are requesting or pursuing restrictions.
The prohibitions keep coming, but data around the policies are scant.
Lucía Magis-Weinberg, a University of Washington assistant professor in psychology and head of the International Adolescent Connection and Technology Laboratory, hopes to fill some of that void. She’s launching research in Washington to study the impacts of the restrictions, and is partnering with Eagle Staff and other schools and welcomes interested administrators to reach out to her.
“It’s such a pressing issue, so we want to move quickly,” Magis-Weinberg said. “We ideally want to follow the kids over the school year to see changes, but we’re hoping to start analyzing even just the baseline data to start to see what’s out there.”
The research will include questionnaires asking students about their feelings of belonging, amount of distraction, interpersonal interactions and sense of autonomy and agency. The study will also survey families and teachers.
“We need to get strong evidence that can guide policy,” Magis-Weinberg said. “And I know school districts are desperate for this type of information.”
The tradeoffs
While there’s significant support for limiting cellphones at schools, many positive uses are lost in a ban.
Ian Fichter, an eighth-grade Eagle Staff student, said without the phones, he and his friends can’t easily coordinate plans for after school. During lunch in years past, he would play games with friends on the devices, or if he wasn’t feeling social, he could “decompress a little” by going online.
There are better ways to manage cellphone use without an outright ban, Fichter said.
“Students are going to get used to it, but I think a lot of kids are going to find ways around it,” he said.
His mom, Caroline Fichter, also had mixed feelings about the new policy. She liked how easy it was to let Ian know if she was running late for pickup, to get updates on his plans, ask what he’d like for dinner, and even just check in.
“I think we’re going to be fine,” she said, “but it’s going to be a period of adjustment.”
The fabric pouches used at Eagle Staff and many other schools are made by a company called Yondr and use magnetic devices for unlocking. There are unlocking stations installed outside the school for kids to use as they leave, and mobile devices in every wing of the building for emergency use.
The pouches cost schools around $25-30 a piece, though the price can vary, and students are assigned one for the year. Other options for controlling cellphone use include requiring students to put them in their backpacks, which are put at the front of a room, or stowing the devices in cubbies during class.
One of the issues that families raise around phone prohibitions is the inability to connect when there are emergencies, such as an order to “shelter in place” that locks down a school due to safety concerns on or near campus. Ian recalled two such incidents in past years that were particularly frightening. He was grateful that he could reach his older brother and parents for reassurance and more information.
This week the U.S. marked another school shooting. The tragedy at Apalachee High School in Georgia left two teachers and two students dead and nine others wounded. A text thread of communications during the event between an Apalachee student and his mother has gone viral.
Educators acknowledge the importance of being able to connect families during these situations. But they added that when an emergency is unfolding, it’s safer for kids to be off devices and following directions. School leaders try to share information in real time with family members, said Stowell.
And some hope that cellphone restrictions can foster more positive relationships and curb provocative communications, potentially reducing violence on campus.
Eagle Staff charts a course
Stowell began laying the foundation for the cellphone ban last year with education and outreach to students and families.
By the time GeekWire visited campus on Thursday morning, school had only been in session one day. Overall, said Stowell, it went great.
Three students who forgot their pouches proactively turned in their phones for the day with the main office. An alarm went off on one kid’s phone, so he went to the office to unlock the pouch and turn it off. Another student, who speaks limited English, was using his phone at lunch and administration worked with him to comply with the rules.
During lunch, staff and volunteers distributed card games and organized soccer to foster interactions. The library was open for students looking for a quiet space. The idea is to offer “replacement behaviors” to help kids adjust to a lack of phones.
Stowell realizes their experience could inform actions at other schools.
“If we can remove [cellphones] and scaffold for meaningful, deep community relationships where everyone feels safe when you walk in, and valued and heard,” Stowell said, “there’s gonna be space and time for learning and community.”
https://ift.tt/bsPFJwL September 06, 2024 at 01:49PM GeekWire
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