Cellphone Ban At Wilton Schools Moving Quickly Toward Reality

With an apparent groundswell of community support, things have been quickly put in motion by Wilton Public Schools officials toward implementing a student cellphone ban.

While Superintendent of Schools Kevin Smith first introduced the idea at the previous Board of Education meeting on May 23 and said he would bring forward a more formal proposal two weeks later, he shared more recently on Thursday night, June 6, that a committee was already in place and would meet on Tuesday, June 11, to examine the question more closely.

“It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of how,” Smith said, citing several considerations that will need to be discussed by the group.

“That’s what that first meeting will do next Tuesday … We’ll just use that time together to really look at logistics and map it out. There are a lot of considerations that we need to walk through,” he said.

Board members appear to be all in favor of the decision, which Smith first broached following his work with the district’s Mental Health Task Force. Smith talked to the BOE about emerging literature and research pointing to the adverse impact of cellphones, in particular a book by psychologist Jonathan Haidt called The Anxious Generation.

“What I’m anticipating, just given the feedback since our last meeting, is the strong majority of folks internally, externally, here in the community, are really interested in pursuing a cellphone ban,” he said.

Smith described a long list of people who are already on the committee. “We have, actually quite a strong group of teachers from Middlebrook [Middle School],” he said. “There was a lot of interest across the staff, so that’s the largest number; [also] a bunch of district administrators (and) I’ve got a few parents who are participating.”

Asked if there were any students taking part, Smith said there were not.

“I don’t have students yet and I haven’t reached out to them, so, but we will figure that out,” he said. “That’s a great question.”

Vanessa Elias, a local mental health advocate, has also been asked to take part, along with Chandra Ring, executive director of the Wilton Youth Council.

“We’ve been talking at the Youth Council about cellphones and social media for years,” Smith said.

He said the group would continue planning for the summer and that he would then bring “an actual plan” to the BOE at its next official meeting at the end of the summer, closer to the start of the 2024-25 school year.

BOE member Patrick Pearson said his constituents are excited about the ban.

“Anecdotally, when I’ve talked to people in the community — and I’m overexposed to young families, given my kids’ age — yeah, overwhelming support is probably an understatement,” he said.

Likewise, BOE member Pamela Ely said she has heard positives reactions from some teenagers she recently encountered.

“These were high school kids and they all thought it was a good idea,” she said.

Smith said that a no-tech day held recently at Wilton High School received some positive reactions from students.

“I don’t know how you generalize across the student body, because you’re going to get the range of reactions, but the feedback from the pilot at the high school, they had a no-tech day, and one of the themes that came through from the student survey is that they appreciated being disconnected,” he said, “and part of the rationale that some of the kids wrote about was a desire to interact more in person.”

“So at some level many of the kids recognize that their smart phones can be a burden,” he said.

Pearson said that the number one concern he had heard from parents related to safety and parents being able to reach their children via cellphones in the event of emergencies.

“That is absolutely the number one question that’s raised across the board,” Smith said, based on information he’s heard from other school districts that have already enacted similar cellphone bans.

Consequently, he said that the district will need to be proactive in not only allaying parents’ concerns, but helping to educate them on how to handle what for many will be a significant transition.

“I think the other really important piece here (is) setting up and supporting our parents and really doing a different kind of campaign,” he said.

“If we can help them be more proactive and more thoughtful, I think that will also serve them, serve kids … just trying to create a stronger community around the delay idea,” he said.