Education Week - May 29, 2024 - 17

One School Leader
Banned Cellphones,
The Other Embraced Them.
What Worked?
Two principals describe their dramatically
different policies on cellphones
and how they are working
By Arianna Prothero
Many educators will tell you that cellphones
are a source of serious academic, mental health,
and behavioral problems for students. And
school leaders are struggling to figure out how
to deal with the cellphone problem, especially
as younger and younger students get their own
devices.
Developing a workable school cellphone
policy is no easy task as major constituents are
often at odds: Teachers may want them gone
while students want unfettered access to them.
Parents are often divided, with some wanting to
minimize distractions in class while others like
the security of being able to reach their kids during
the school day.
In response to these challenges, Education
Week reached out to two school leaders, one in a
school that requires students to lock their phones
up all day, and the other in a school that encourages
students to use their phones for learning in
class. Both leaders claim that their approaches
are working.
A middle school ban because cellphones
were 'the ultimate distraction'
Charles Longshore is the assistant principal of
Dothan Preparatory Academy in Dothan, Ala.
His school serves 1,200 7th and 8th grade students.
Longshore
said that while he sees academic
value in cellphones, he also sees that life has
placed a lot of hurdles in front of his students,
and that cellphones had become another one
getting in the way of learning.
" We often have kids who are 7th graders
who are functioning academically at 2nd and
3rd grade levels and we're trying to jump them
[ahead academically], " he said.
Cellphones weren't just a distraction in Dothan
classrooms-they were seriously undermining
the school's climate, said Longshore.
Students were arguing more, and Longshore
said increasing amounts of his time were spent
managing discipline referrals.
A particular thorn in Dothan administrators'
sides was an anonymous Instagram account
that had been created to spread school rumors,
he said.
" We were never able to figure out who created
it, Instagram would not help us, we appealed
to them to take it down and they never would, "
he said. " It was students saying, 'so and so did
this,' or 'so and so did that,' or has this condition.
And they would post pictures. They might
be like, 'look at what she's wearing!' [snapping]
a picture of them in gym. Is it feasible for us to
stop and check 150 kids in P.E. to see who took
the photo? "
Problems that arise from cellphones and social
media are difficult to police, Longshore said. It's
often one student's word against another, or one
student's complaint against an anonymous per "
There
are 100,000 ways that kids use their cellphones
and the other half of this is that it's hard to tell a kid
not to use their cellphone when the adult in front
of them has to use theirs.
CHRIS PAGE
Principal, Highland Ranch High School, Douglas County, Colo.
those with diabetes who use their phones to
monitor their blood sugar levels, can keep their
devices throughout the day.
The majority of parents support the policy
now and students have come to accept it, said
Longshore.
The biggest challenge with the cellphone policy
came before it was enacted, Longshore said.
When they announced it last summer, there
was pushback and a lot of misinformation-but
it was nothing a couple of community forums
couldn't smooth over, he said.
The results have been extremely promising,
Longshore said. He can see tangible improvements
to the school's climate. Behavioral referrals
have gone down by about 20 percent. And
he believes he will see improvements in students'
academic performance as well, once state
test results are released.
Longshore doesn't think Dothan's cellphone
policy is the answer for every school. High
the adult in front of them has to use theirs, " he
said. " We decided we just weren't going to fight
that fight anymore. "
Page encourages teachers to use students'
cellphones as tools in their teaching. The school
provides periodic professional development
throughout the year to teachers on how they
can leverage the devices in their instruction-
whether it be to have students look up additional
information in class, access materials, use online
calculators, or make videos for class projects.
From science teachers to music teachers,
cellphones present a lot of helpful opportunities
for educators, Page said.
" We use it in our choir. Our choir teacher now
makes it a recommendation that the kids have
to find their pitch on their own without using
the piano, [...] they use their phone to play a G
or B cord for them, " Page said. " It's allowed us
a little more freedom in our teaching space. In
our school we have two outdoor classrooms, so
son who posted something online.
Longshore said that adolescents have unique
developmental struggles that made the situation
in his school untenable.
" Self-management is one of our biggest
concerns-I think COVID had a lot to do with
that, " he said. " Not having that structure, I think
played a role. But our population being in that
rough transitional phase in their lives in general,
what their minds are going through, their bodies
are going through, socially what they are going
through, [cellphones] were the ultimate distraction. "
That's
why administrators at Dothan decided
to bar students from using cellphones during the
school day, starting this school year. Students
place their cellphones in individual lockboxes
in their homerooms at the beginning of the day.
Their homeroom teacher keeps the key to each
lockbox. Students return to their homeroom for
the last class period and retrieve their phones
a few minutes before the final bell. That way,
Longshore said, students have their phones for
afterschool activities and to walk home-which
makes parents more comfortable.
There are caveats to the policy, said Longshore.
A few students with special needs, like
school students, for example, may be mature
enough to manage their own cellphone use, and
having the devices in class could be beneficial
for some classroom assignments.
But for his middle schoolers, Longshore believes
this policy is the right one.
A high school that encourages students to
use cellphones as learning tools
In Douglas County, Colo., Chris Page is the
principal of Highlands Ranch High School,
which serves about 1,400 students.
In his school, students are allowed to use their
phones throughout the day and are even encouraged
to do so. Page had tried banning cellphones
at one point, he said, but that lasted for only
about a month.
" There are 100,000 ways that kids use their
cellphones and the other half of this is that it's
hard to tell a kid not to use their cellphone when
it's given us more freedom to teach in better,
more unique spaces instead of trapped [in] the
classroom with all of the Chromebooks because
that's the only technology we have. "
The cellphone policy isn't a total free-for-all,
Page emphasized. Even though teachers are encouraged
to find uses for students' cellphones,
they ultimately have the authority to make the
rules for their own classrooms and can tell students
to put away their phones at any time, Page
said.
If kids use their phones inappropriately-such
as a student ignoring a teacher who has asked
for the phone to be put away-they get two warnings
before the teacher is allowed to confiscate
the phone. Students can retrieve it from Page's
office later.
The school is also using more technology that
requires students to have cellphones, said Page.
School administrators also frequently communicate
important information to students on
social media-for instance, all updates regarding
this year's prom are posted on the school's Instagram
account. Page even hosted a schoolwide
scavenger hunt this year where he dropped clues
on Instagram.
And the school is adopting digital ID badges
which will require students to use their phones,
Page said. The pandemic changed his school's
relationships with technology.
" Just like most people in the country, technology
became so much of a necessity, " Page said.
" When COVID hit, [after] our dive into technology,
we chose not to come out of the pool, and
we decided to keep utilizing the technology in
our classrooms. "
Overall, Page said the policy has been working
well, even with some of the challenges it
creates-such as kids constantly reaching out
to their parents during the school day instead of
taking their issues to the school counselor. The
school also has to have a supply of iPads on hand
for those students who forget their phones so
they can still participate in class activities.
And, Page admits, cellphones can still cause
distractions-he used an example of a student
ordering lunch from Uber Eats during class.
But he said the school hasn't descended into
anarchy either. Only about 10 times a year, Page
estimates, do students get their cellphones taken
away from them.
The way Page sees it is that cellphones are
here to stay and it's the job of a high school to
teach students how to use them productively.
" We are in the business of preparing kids for
the next step, " he said. " There aren't many college
campuses that have no cellphones whatsoever.
It's about responsible use, and we have a
duty to teach kids about responsible use. "
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