Do you think schools will become phone free in the near future?

Our district is phone free. They can have them but if we see them, they immediately take them to the office to be locked up until the end of the day. I’m in a middle school, suburban district in the Midwest. It’s been wonderful. We have very, very few phone distractions. It is not a safety issue to be without a phone. In the unlikely event of an emergency, every room has a phone, and I would argue that the calling parents and posting to social media during an emergency would cause extra issues. The top priority shouldn’t be a phone, it should be escaping, evading or engaging.

My kids school has a no phone policy. Not sure how well it is enforced. I'm still flabbergasted that kids as young as kindergarten have cell phones in school. (I've heard of a few from a friend that works there). I don't even carry my phone on me where I work. Until they said we have call the office before we send a student down.

I know with schools in the US it’s a safety issue not having phones on your body.

That’s such a bullshit argument. Phones cause nothing but problems. If there is an emergency, hundreds of kids all trying to call or text at the same time just overwhelms the system. 

God I hope so.

My district already is phone free and has been for years.

Phones are supposed to be “off and out of sight”. We can take a phone to the office and write a student up if we see their phone. Personally, I only write them up if they’re on their phone actively using it.

Not a chance. We had a parent complain early in the year because Verizon doesn’t work in our building and she wasn’t able to get in touch with her son. She asked what the district was going to do about it.

This already happens all over the place, including the US. My district has a policy of no phones during school hours, including lunch/recess. Some kids complain or sneak it out of their backpacks here and there, but overall it's worked well, and better than I thought it would. It's not a safety concern at all - if families need to have contact, they can use the office phone.

I wonder if this could happen. Imagine if every desk had a Tupperware dish on top. Every class, kids put their electronics in the dish and cover it. They can't take it out until the end.

I see a lot of people whining about emergencies or school shootings or whatever as excuses for why kids need their phones.

So great, they have them. They're a one second cover snap away, but they're secure. I'd think that would end the argument.

If it’s in their backpack, it’s on campus.

It is slow moving, but I think we will get there. I think the main obstacle right now is getting parents to buy in on the idea that having their kid constantly attached to their phone is bad for them. We see higher educated parents installing good boundaries when it comes to digital devices, the hard part is getting that idea down to the less educated parents.

As far as the safety issue in the US, this is bullshit. First, the chance of a single school being in a shooting type emergency is very low. Second, you would not want every single kid in school on their cell phone during an emergency. Talking to emergency personnel in my area, this will clog up the radios and make it more difficult for responders to act to the best of their ability. Lastly, how is a kid contacting mom or dad going to have a positive impact on what happens? If mom and dad are telling the kid to run, teacher says stay in the classroom since it is built like a fortress and no one can get in, kid is going to run out and get themselves killed, and possibly others when they open the door.

Yes. Mine already is.

I'm in college rn- my (private) school had a no phone policy. In elementary, phones had to be in backpacks in the hallway or given to the teacher during the school day. In middle, you could have them in your locker, but not use them until after school. In HS, we could keep them with us, but they had to be put away during class unless you had permission to use it. You would get demerits for refusing to put it away.

We never had any problems. In all grades, parents could call the office and students could use the office phone, so we could always communicate in emergencies. In fact, I think it's better to go through the office in emergencies so the relevant people all know what's going on for attendance and safety purposes. I find it bizarre to allow phones in class. They are not necessary at all, and they cause a lot of distraction.

For high school, no. More and more course content is online and there isn’t enough funding in our district for every kid to get a computer, so students need to use their phones to do their work.

I'll buck the trend here and say I hope not. The phones are tools and my students (high school, title 1, minority majority) have the self regulation to use them properly. We need them when the laptops die, and it's nothing to see a student working on both screens at once. As a teacher, I love being able to plan, differentiate, and facilitate a lot faster and more meaningfully with my students. And hell, when I'm told to put away my electronics in PD, I am livid because I want to get actual work done. True, I'm not a teenager, but the kids have valid feelings about completing work as well.

The phone disruptions exist because of piss poor parenting. I would rather not take the tools from my good students when my bad actors are enabled by their guardians who don't realize that parent is a verb.

I had crap peers in school and I have some crap students now. The phones just make the bad behavior manifest differently.

Actual consequences for misuse of anything in the classroom is what I wish for. But we are so scared of parents and the political boogeymen on both sides that there will be no consequences, and if phones are banned on campuses, I honestly think that just means the kids are better at hiding them or at switching out sim cards in cheap shells.

I 100% think this will be the case, yes. And I think that 1:1 Chromebooks (with all or nearly all content being web-based) will have a demise as a general rule as well. Remote learning for certain issues or places, yes, but "Chromebook based schooling" as a general rule? No.

It's clear that increases in technology in the last 5-10 years have not helped get information into the brains of students. There's not even any denying that.

Computers have their place for sure. Dedicated computer labs and also a ton of Chromebooks or laptops will be needed by schools for the foreseeable future, but that is for specific classes, for test or exam testing, etc.. But to teach the vast majority of most subjects? No, we'll all realize that they aren't needed in order to get knowledge into student brains, and were more of a detriment than anything else.

I have things in my course that almost require a phone, and I have to make special accommodations for the occasional phoneless kid. I’ll manage my own classroom.

I’m also wondering because eventually I want to work in a district like this!

I wish. We are supposedly a phone free campus after many years of a BYOD campus. Guess which device kids brought each day?

Our district is considering phone bags like they use at concerts. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna128247

I think so. It has to happen. There’s no smoking lounge anymore.

Our school board made that call going into this year, and it is by far the best thing they have ever done. It also put the responsibility on the shoulders of elected officials and not on school staff, and that was greatly appreciated.

No. Parents will always overrule this. I would love for that to happen but when majority of parents text their kids DURING CLASS/SCHOOL, it's never going to fly.

I wish!!!!!!!!

My school is. Phones need to stay in your locker.

We went phone free this year and it’s glorious. Kids are supposed to keep them in their locker and can only grab them at lunch.

While kids are sneaking their phone on them, it’s mostly for music and the effect is the same. Kids are more engaged.

Here’s a funny anecdote from Friday with a kid I caught with their phone.

The kid’s friends ratted him out by saying out loud loudly “Siri, call 911”…. Basically telling me and the class he has his phone on him. So I wander on over, drop to his level and lo and behold, what do I see but a little corner of a phone sticking out of the kids pocket. I ask for it, he refuses and says he doesn’t have it… “alright man, what is in your pocket then?”…. “Idk, I don’t have my phone on me”… I tell the kid I’ll give him a little bit to think about it and I’ll come back.

I come back, ask for the phone, same story, “I don’t have my phone.” Well alright, I can’t pat the kid down, so I tell him I’m gonna write him up.

End of class he stays back and asks if I’m really going to write him up. Absolutely, you got your phone on you and you’re lying to me about it.

He tells me it’s in his locker.

As the kids say: “Bet”, “show me it’s in your locker and I won’t write you up.”

Luckily it was lunch and I had the time to go and check so we start walking, I’m power talking but realize, he must lead the way to his locker, I don’t know where his is.

So I tell him that and he goes….”uhh I forgot where my locker is.”

No problem man, I’ll go write that referral.

I also asked him if he wanted me to get him the shovel to dig his hole deeper, which I thought was a great line.

I already do NO phones for regular classes. Advanced classes it's fine, we use them.

When they walk in, their phone goes in phone pockets by my desk, can't have it on you. However, if we are doing independent work, I let them listen to music as long as they're doing their work and their phone is put up.

The kids that do their work, they made playlists and they vibe while working.

The students that don't do their work, just sit there in silence. You don't get to have airpods in, and not work.

I hope.

I hope not. Just more for me to police. Unless.... you had a way to block signal to students. Make their phones not work rather than make me monitor it.

It’s not a safety issue.

You can call the office if there’s an emergency. We’ll call you if there’s one.

You know, just like it was done before everyone had a cell phone.

My district is. I don't get how it's a mind blowing concept for anyone over the age of 30 but here we are

Not in the northeast. Parents here actively advocate to be able to reach their children at any time. Kids exploit it and don’t even bother hiding it anymore.

Our school has a major issue with kids wandering halls all day. One proposed solution is a hall pass system kids access through their phones. They also may be implementing two-factor authentication after a major security breach last year that took out all network related things (including email, attendance, and printing) which is going to require a phone

I'm torn on the phone issue. I have quite a few MLLs that need the phone to translate in real time, otherwise they have no idea what's going on. I have kids with broken Chromebooks the school can't/won't replace, and having them participate on their phones is the only way to give them an equitable experience.

I also think we need to be thinking about how we start teaching kids when it's ok to put the device away and when to use it. It's kinda like never letting a kid have sugar or junk food or self agency... once they get access they binge. You have to teach them how to self regulate their intake. If we are talking 21st century skills, many jobs expect you to be reachable by text or email immediately or use work related apps.

We have clamped down on phone use. Straight into the pocket chart on the wall is the rule. It’s been working beautifully after several years of “free for all” cell phone policies that we all knew were terrible.  More bad administrative “solutions” that created problems. That said, I will occasionally ask students to use their phone. I’m talking maybe once every couple of weeks and that only if I can’t get computers signed out. 

I thought this was every district.

They should.

My school is phone free and I love it!

Our district just folded to parent pressure and now we are not allowed to ban the phones from our classroom, even in the early elementary grades. Parents are concerned that if there is a shooting that children won't be able to call them from inside the classroom. Kids have to be allowed to have their phones on them at all times.

The middle school is sub at is and it’s not an issue from what I’ve seen

Australia is going phone free, any emergency contacts go through the school office

US Schools can be “phone free” too. When I student taught, phones were collected at the start of the day and locked up. The first school I worked for, cell phones were required to be in lockers. Students either listened or were really good about hiding them. Even had times were kids forgot to put them in locker and asked me to hang on to them so they wouldn’t get in trouble. So the idea can work if it’s enforced. My current school (different district) has the same policy but admin doesn’t do anything to enforce it. Teachers are just to assign detentions, this policy doesn’t work.

It’s now a law in the Province of Quebec.

We are completely phone free including lunch and before and after school. On a recent field trip, the outdoors ed teacher said our group was the most engaged he had seen that year and that they actually seemed to like hanging out with one another (7th graders). I feel like not having phones has not only helped their engagement in class, but they actually act like kids and play and use their creativity during breaks. I dont think all schools will go this route but I would consider it a plus when looking for a new district.