As students returned to school for a new semester following a long weekend for finals, a new fixture could be seen adorning many classroom walls: caddies for storing phones.

The School Board presented a new proposed electronic device policy at the February 12 School Board Policy Committee meeting, along with data from parents, students, and teachers via both focus groups and surveys.

The policy failed to move forward after multiple board members and community members criticized keeping phones at lunch and between classes. 

Three of the six board members present at the meeting expressed support for a total ban of phones for the entire school day, including lunch.

The proposed policy and accompanying administrative regulation would have put into writing many of the goals of the “Screens Off, Minds On” initiative at the high school, mandating designated storage areas for cell phones in each room and laying out a progressive discipline tree. 

The discipline tree would lay out progressive discipline and consequences, ranging from a verbal warning and reminder of the policy at the first and second offenses, to contact with parent or guardians at the fourth offense, and additional consequences such as detention or in-school suspension at the fifth and subsequent offenses.

The policy would also have included smartwatches and earbuds, treating them similarly to phones. It would also have continued to allow students to use phones at lunch, however, which was a point of contention for many at the meeting.

The board will return to discuss a revised policy again at the March Policy Committee meeting. It was not clarified whether the revised policy would include a total ban or not.

The new caddies are an element of the “Screens Off, Minds On” initiative. Introduced at the beginning of the year, the initiative aims to enforce the District’s electronic device policy, (Policy 237) which prohibits use of cell phones in class while allowing the devices to be used during non-instructional time such as lunch. 

“I think that we’ve started off strong with it,” Assistant Principal Andrea LaPira said. “Students have sort of tested the waters a little bit. I think we are trying to build a refocus on it.”

The administration reminded students of expectations during an energetic assembly on January 24 featuring games and trivia. The assembly, despite largely serving as a reminder for students to stop gathering in bathrooms and using phones, took on a fun edge under new principal Mr. Andrew Benzing.

“I think our student body is generally a top notch group,” Benzing said. “They value education, so it doesn’t always have to be put your phones away, it can be a conversation like ‘read this article.’”

Changes to the initiative going forward include making phone caddies available for any teachers who desire them, though they remain optional and teachers retain the right to manage enforcement in their own classrooms.

“We have 100 teachers who are managing their classrooms in a way that makes the most sense for them, and we want to value and respect that,” LaPira said.

The administration believes the initiative is working for most students, even if some need additional guidance.

“Most of our kids, when they know there’s an expectation, they’re following it,” LaPira said. “We don’t have a huge problem with defiance or difficulties. I feel grateful for that all the time, and I’m really proud of our students for that.”

Student reactions to the initiative have been mixed, with some objecting to the crackdown while others acknowledge some level of enforcement may be necessary.

“I personally don’t like it,” senior Emily Reilly said. “Especially in classes where you have upperclassmen, I don’t understand why you’re telling adults to put their phones away.” 

Still others see the initiative as unjustly punishing students who may not have problems with excessive cell phone usage.

“I don’t like it,” sophomore Jayden Peki said. “I feel like it’s punishing everybody for a problem that only a few people have. While I think it’s a big problem for some people in the classes, I feel like everybody’s getting the same treatment for something that only a few people are doing.”

LaPira believes that as the years go on, the problem should improve as more students who were subject to phone restrictions come into Strath Haven. Under Dr. Christopher Matsanka, Strath Haven Middle School has adopted tighter phone restrictions, including a reduction on phone use outside the classroom.

“I have felt all along that it’s going to take time,” LaPira said. “Because if you keep in mind, there’s much tighter procedures in the middle school than there used to be, and in the high school there are some kids who are juniors and seniors.”

Some seniors oppose the initiative and feel that they should not have the same restrictions as freshmen students, who they see as less mature when it comes to self-discipline.

“We’ve been through the wringer for four years,” senior Cecily Heisey-Terrell said. “We know how to pay attention, how to get our work done and how to not be on our phones. Freshmen, however, should all have to put their phones in phone jail. I know it’s unfair, but also phone jail, [it’s] kind of funny.”

Some students are addicted to their phones, and oppose the initiative for that reason, and yet many, like Peki and Heisey-Terrell, oppose the initiative due to other grievances.

“I like the idea [of “Screens Off, Minds On], but I don’t like it in practice,” freshman Fenton Orsetti said. “Maybe I don’t use my phone in class, but I like to have it around me. Also, can we get rid of eHallPass?”

LaPira and Benzing also hope to reduce the number of students taking their phones to the bathroom, an area where electronic devices are expressly prohibited under district policy.

“We don’t want people gathering in the bathrooms. We want kids to be engaged during instructional time,” LaPira said.

Benzing attempted to remedy that issue in the assembly by masquerading with fellow administrators as teenage miscreants misusing the bathroom and installing “bathroom literature” that may provide alternative entertainment for dopamine-starved students.

For Benzing, much of the magic is in messaging to the students in an engaging manner.

“We’re trying to find really creative ways for kids to be mindful of the impact of these devices,” Benzing said.

And a growing body of research is making that impact clear. In an article authored on Frontiers for Young Minds and originally published in the Translational Psychiatry journal, researchers presented data from studies on the effects of phone usage on teenagers’ ability to pay attention to tasks.

“Our findings suggest that people who use smartphones excessively are more easily distracted because their brains do not efficiently use the brain network responsible for attention processing—how your brain focuses on specific things while ignoring others,” researchers reported in the article. “This study helped us understand the brain mechanisms behind why it is harder for excessive smartphone users to focus on the task and why they cannot ignore irrelevant information.”

On October 29, Interim Superintendent Dr. James Scanlon held an educational cell phone forum to learn more about the impacts of cell phones from experts, teachers, students, and community members.

A parent group, “Haven Hold the Phone,” has been lobbying for a total ban on cell phones, where students would not be permitted to use cell phones during lunch or between classes. This year, cell phone restrictions have swept the nation, and in January, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called for a statewide cell phone ban in New Jersey Schools.

Parent advocates in favor of a ban have claimed that having cell phones during non-instructional time encourages anti-social behavior and negatively impacts mental health, and have cited Yondr pouches as a method of locking away phones for the day.

Opponents of a ban, meanwhile, contend that phones are necessary for communication between families, particularly for purposes of extracurricular activities and transportation or emergency situations.

“I use my phone to talk to my parents about how I’m getting home, what I’m doing when I get home, and how I’m getting to school the next day,” Heisey-Terrell said. “It is something I paid for, something I use. I don’t think the school should be able to monitor that, and there’s probably a law, and we could probably make a whole Moot Court case about it.”

The possibility of infringing on personal property troubles Benzing as well.

“Philosophically, I kind of have an issue with that,” Benzing said. “This is somebody’s personal property, these things are $1000 each.”

Benzing believes that a total ban policy for phones would be challenging to enforce at Strath Haven and that a middle ground can be found between the two extremes: no phones at all throughout the day and complete technology freedom for students.

“As long as we just listen to each other’s perspectives, I think the answer is somewhere in the middle,” Benzing said. “We will be flexible with it.”

The current guidelines that go along with the “Screens Off, Minds On” initiative at the high school are meant to increase engagement in classes while still setting boundaries for phone usage by students. Administrators note that a ban, being very different from the current policies implemented in the district, would be difficult for students to receive.

“The whole goal all along has been respectful and responsible use,” LaPira said. “It’s not about trying to control students or take away something that they want. It’s about knowing [the] time and place [for using phones].”