Thomas Breen file photo
State ed commissioner Russell-Tucker: Fewer phone distractions, better student mental health.
Cellphones should be kept out of the hands of elementary and middle school students, and their use should be restricted — but not outright banned — for high schoolers.
The state Board of Education handed down those recommendations Wednesday as they voted to encourage, but not require, public schools across Connecticut to limit students’ use of “personal technology” during the school day in a bid to cut down on distractions in the classroom.
The state board unanimously approved that position statement and policy guidance Wednesday during its latest meeting, which was held in-person at the Wethersfield Historical Society and online via YouTube. The proposal was recommended by state Department of Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker.
It was heartily endorsed by Gov. Ned Lamont in a follow-up email press release, which also quoted Russell-Tucker as saying, “By removing the distraction caused by smartphone use during the school day and fostering a healthy balance with the positive use of technology, we create schools and classrooms that maximize peer-to-peer and student-to-educator interaction, develop social skills in interpersonal communication, and positively impact academic growth and success, all while supporting student mental health.”
Wednesday’s state school board vote does not impose any kind of cellphone-ban mandate on local districts like New Haven Public Schools (NHPS). Instead, it lays out how the state thinks local districts should pull back on cellphone use in schools — and then leaves it to them to craft and enforce their own policies.
The vote comes as NHPS has already begun rolling out cellphone-restricting Yondr pouches at several middle schools across the district, with Barnard having piloted the devices last year and three more middle schools set to try them out this year. It also comes as municipalities and states across the country are wrestling with how best to limit cellphone use by students during the school day, given how phones and social media eat into instructional time, cut down on in-person interactions, and sap student attention. Some states, like Indiana and Florida, have banned cellphone use in the classroom entirely.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the state Board of Education discussed the policy guidance, and heard responses from members who spoke up as parents, students, and educators.
The policy guidance seeks to limit cellphone use in schools in order to “safeguard the learning environment and provide a springboard for student academic success and overall well-being.”
The recommendations vary for elementary, middle, and high school grades “based on developmental readiness and maturity”:
• At the elementary level, the policy guidance recommends removing cellphones from classrooms entirely in order to “to maximize academic, social, and emotional development. Elementary school students’ school day environments and experiences and classroom activities should create spaces that encourage personal interaction among peers.”
• At the middle school level, the policy guidance also recommends removing cellphones from classrooms. “Developmentally, this age group is particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of excessive personal technology use and has a difficult time controlling their impulses. Concurrently, middle school students experience increased autonomy and independence during the school day, which can lead to increased opportunity for cell phone misuse.”
• And at the high school level, the document recommends a cellphone policy that is “restrictive; however, as appropriate, high school students may be developmentally ready to take more ownership of controlling excessive use and understanding responsibilities regarding technology use to better prepare them for life after high school.”
Click here to read the policy document in full.
Division Director of School Health, Nutrition, and Family Services John Frassinelli told the state Board of Education Wednesday that a recent study of 3,500 students showed that 97 percent of students reported using cellphones during the school day for a median time of 43 minutes.
He noted that district policies should consider alternative reasons for phone use, like glucose monitoring for students with diabetes. Those local policies, he said, should also encourage students to develop their impulse control, should call on families not to contact students during day the day, should find a way to incorporate “phone breaks” during the school day, and should discourage personal devices from being used in the classroom for education reasons, as not every student has a phone.
Asked for a comment on Wednesday’s vote and new statewide guidance, NHPS spokesperson Justin Harmon told the Independent, “New Haven supports the goal of creating cellphone-free spaces for students, particularly in middle school and high school. We look forward to reading the guidance from CSDE [Connecticut State Department of Education].”
Board member Kristen Record, a teacher in Bridgeport, praised the recommendation for not being a mandate. “This needs to be a months-long dialogue in districts with everyone, including students,” to reach and implement appropriate local policies, she said.
When asked if funding will be available to support district policies, Frassinelli said the CSDE plans to look into federal resources to fund ideas for districts to purchase school-based digital devices, phone-free storage pouches, and training on “digital citizenship.”
Record continued that as a high school teacher of physics in Bridgeport, she at times incorporates phones in her instructional lessons for students to record and analyze videos of labs. “I appreciate the flexibility that’s here in this policy guidance, not only for grade level but understanding that here are actually legitimate educational purposes for which educators use a phone all the time with our students.”
She concluded that in her experience, not only do parents want access to their students through phones, but the reverse is also true. She said students with chronic mental health illnesses like high anxiety may occasionally take a bathroom break with their phones to text with their parent to calm down when their anxiety flares, before returning to the class to resume with school.
Fellow state school board member and current high school student at Amity Regional High School Sophia Messina said she agrees with the recommendations for completely removing cellphones at the elementary and middle school levels during the school day. She said high school policies, meanwhile, should focus on restricting phone use during instruction time because “it can really enhance the experience and the discussions in class.”
Outside of class time, she said, phones should be accessible in between classes, lunch, and study hall. “There’s a lot of things that go on during the day for high schoolers,” she said, and taking phones away for the whole day is “unreasonable” because high schoolers often have jobs and other after-school responsibilities.
She also said students’ responsibilities can change unexpectedly with parents texting to cancel after-school plans to drive a sibling home or an employer can reach out about last minute work schedule changes.
“It is very hard to plan those things without any access to cellphones and having to do so would only increase the stress and anxiety for both parents and students,” she said.
She concluded that the suggestion to have students use landline phones in the school is not enough because “private communication between parents and students is essential.”
Board member and parent Seth Zimmerman of New Haven said he believes there will be strong support among parents for strengthened cellphone policies. “I, certainly, as a parent, would strongly support it,” he said.
He called for more data on phone usage and its impacts in school to be presented to families and students as the state Board of Education and local school districts gather information, draft and implement policies, and then track how effective those policies are.
Watch Wednesday's full meeting above.