“Cellphones are Not Good for Schools” — WHS Administrators Advocate for a Ban

“Cellphones are not good for schools.”

So declared Wilton High School Principal Robert O’Donnell in a prepared statement to the Board of Education on Thursday night, Sept. 19.

The BOE gave its first official read-through of the proposed Policy 5121.3 regarding the use of private technology devices by students, which will ultimately ban student cellphones in the schools if approved next month. Board policy requires two readings of a policy before any voting can happen.

Reaction from the Wilton community has been mixed, with some supporting the ban in an effort to improve student wellness and avert social media and gaming during the school day. Others have been in opposition to the ban, claiming, among other things, that it makes students feel unsafe and ill-prepared for emergency situations.

Board members heard a presentation from O’Donnell, WHS Assistant Principal Amy Korn and District Safe School Climate Coordinator Kim Zemo, all of whom spoke strongly in favor of implementing the change.

“They do spend a lot of time on their cellphones in school,” O’Donnell said, affirming data stating that kids spend around seven hours on their phones each day, receiving close to 50 notifications during the school day alone.

“To be clear, I am not submitting that all student cellphone use is for negative purposes; however, cellphones provide students with direct access to social media and that can be inherently distracting from our education program, and it will have adverse effects on our students,” he said.

“Students do not need social media and gaming apps during the school day,” he said, indicating it was the role of adults to help kids disconnect “and not be tethered to their cellphones … certainly not during the school day.”

While O’Donnell said that most of the 1,220 students at the high school adhere to the current rules governing cellphone use, which largely consist of not using them during class unless given permission, he said there are also many incidents stemming from the phones and social media that cause concern each day.

“For example,” he said, “inappropriate photo taking, posting and sharing of unflattering photos, cellphones used in bullying other students, creating and sharing videos of physical altercations. Also, over the years, incidents where racism is propagated through the use of cellphones.”

While he emphasized the school broadly remains a safe place and that his administration continues to address these issues as they arise among a select number of students, he blamed the presence of the phones themselves for allowing these incidents to occur.

“These would not occur should these phones not be in our schools,” O’Donnell said, also noting that there are many negative things happening in the virtual landscape during the school day that parents and educators are not even aware of.

“That may be the more concerning part of this,” he said.

O’Donnell also disputed beliefs some people hold that students are better off having their cellphones in hand during school emergencies.

“I want to dispel some of the conversation around working in emergency situations … I think while some maintain that students need immediate access to cellphones during these emergencies, as a school leader I would submit that in most instances …  we want students off their cellphones and focusing on the directives of a trusted adult, an adult who has been trained in Wilton Public Schools’ emergency operation procedures, which are very sound and research-based,” he said.

“These situations vary, but in most instances, we would want students’ cellphones away and paying attention to what’s going on around them,” he said, noting that the school’s in-house resource officer concurred.

Superintendent of Schools Kevin Smith restated the reasons behind his push for the policy and practice change.

“It’s well-understood that there is, and continues to be, a growing concern about the impact of cellphones and social media on the development and well-being of our young people,” he said. 

“I see this policy and this policy change as consistent with a number of changes that we’ve made over the years,” he said, including moving the high school to a later start time to facilitate better sleep patterns for the teenagers and moving the high school to block scheduling.

“The goals that we’ve laid out are to enhance academic focus, to promote connection through face-to-face interaction, to improve mental health and to support positive behavior,” he said.

“This is a concern and it’s a concern that’s growing,” Smith said of nonstop cellphone use among young people.

“I think the current approach is insufficient,” he said of the current classroom ban, which the district has overall found ineffectual and is also said to have placed undue work on teachers, who have to police the classroom constantly to keep students off their phones.

Assistant Principal Korn said she was previously not in favor of banning the phones but has changed her mind on the issue.

“They live on these devices and it started to really dawn on me how scary it’s getting,” she said.

“I really believe it’s the best thing for our kids and that we have to take a stand,” she said.

Korn demonstrated the use of the Yondr brand pouch, in which students would store their phones during the day. The pouches are locked through magnets that would be set up outside the front of the school in the morning and then positioned there at the end of the day.

Each student would be responsible for hanging on to their own pouch, which could be unlocked during the day for special assignments from teachers that might benefit from cellphone use, or for seniors who have the privilege to leave campus during the day.

In the event of emergencies, there would be a magnet left permanently in front of the school if students needed to unlock their pouches at a late hour or on the weekend.

It recently came to light that Smith had ordered the pouches prior to the BOE approval of the new policy, allocating $80,000 that was left over from last year’s budget — something he said happens sometimes.

“I will do that different next time,” he said, noting his intention had been to move things along.

BOE member Heather Priest expressed some concerns — not only with Smith having allocated that money but also with the idea that the school district was rushing into a ban without adequately implementing consequences with regard to the current classroom ban.

“There seems to be kind of this environment of no consequences, right?” she said. “Kids do things. They get away with it. There’s no punishment. Nothing ever happens to them.”

“And so I just question spending this kind of money without having any say in it and then implementing a policy that we never really tried to implement without it.”

O’Donnell disagreed with Priest’s assessment.

“What you’re saying is patently untrue … There are consequences. We don’t publish them … That may be the perception, but it’s not true,” he said.

Still, Priest went further with a hypothetical query.

“But if there hasn’t been any effort to enforce a policy to restrict cellphones, I just wonder if that’s what the community is upset about, right? If we just haven’t tried to enforce any policy previously and now suddenly we’re going to this extreme that costs the town $80,000,” she said.

While she said she was still in favor of the ban, Priest said it was her duty as a board member to raise the question on behalf of the public.

“It’s really, really, really hard to manage and police,” Smith said, emphasizing that the staff has struggled with the issue and that there have been consequences for students.

“I don’t personally see this as an extreme step,” he said of the ban.

Smith said that the week after next teachers and administrators would be meeting with students to discuss the ban in further detail, with the BOE likely to vote on the policy itself at its Oct. 10 meeting.

“I believe that Dr. Smith has done a thorough job of presenting much of the current information, the research and the data,” O’Donnell said.