Last week, the board for the largest school district in California passed a remarkable resolution: a ban on cell phones. Los Angeles Unified School District officials’ ultimate goal is to restrict cell phone usage not only in class but during non-instructional periods like lunch as well.
But LA Unified officials aren’t the only ones on the march toward a cell phone free campus.
Gov. Gavin Newsom also recently joined the charge, citing an advisory from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on the potentially damaging impacts of social media on children. In a brief press release, Newsom wrote, “When children and teens are in school, they should be focused on their studies — not their screens.”
The momentum to get phones out of classrooms has accelerated as students’ academic recovery from the pandemic has proved sluggish. Cell phones are by no means the sole cause of the slow recovery, but they can be a significant distraction during class. Kids don’t even have to be actively using them; just the ping of a cell phone notification can derail a student, studies show. Some research in countries that have banned cell phones shows a positive impact on student learning, but not everyone is convinced.
But what’s going on in classrooms isn’t the sole concern. Cell phones’ overall impact on the mental health of kids is also a key driver for these bans. Comments from LA Unified board members in a press release about the ban drive that point home.
“When I visit campuses during lunchtime, my heart breaks to see students sitting alone, isolated on their phones, instead of engaging and learning with their peers,” said board member Ortiz Franklin.
Ban Diego Unified?
San Diego Unified officials have also begun thinking about what role cell phones should play on campuses.
During a conversation about AI in education, Board President Shana Hazan said: “With the use of any new tech and anything that shapes teaching and learning, we absolutely have to have a conversation about it and frankly we also have to have a conversation about tech more broadly and the impact of phones in schools.”
That wasn’t a one off. Board member Cody Petterson said district officials have begun to take a “deep dive,” into research into the potential harms of cell phone use in schools. To him, the research is clear. Cell phones present a whole slew of potential psychological and instructional harms. He regularly hears from teachers about the challenges they pose to learning.
“I think early in the academic year, you’ll see some initial board action on it and the beginning of a process of consultation with stakeholders, with staff, with site leaders, with families and with community organizations,” Petterson said.
Petterson said he can’t speak for the entire board but “the likelihood is very strong that there will be some form of [cell phone] exclusions from some settings.”
But “ban,” is a strong word, he said, and the district is still very early in the process. Exactly what the policy may look like will shift depending on what staff members find in their research review. If they find cell phones in classes harm learning, then Petterson thinks they’ll ban them from classrooms. But if they find cell phone use creates more severe social and emotional harm, “We’re going to have to consider more profound and more pervasive exclusions,” Petterson said.
The implementation dilemma: Research has long linked the precipitous increase in cell phone usage among children to a similarly precipitous rise in mental health struggles. But figuring out how to keep cell phones out of kids’ hands during school will likely prove to be a monumental challenge. After all, at least one survey found 97 percent of 11- to 17-year-old kids use their phones during the school day. Pair that with parents’ desire to stay in contact with their kids – at least in part out of fear of school violence – and you’re faced with a real sticky wicket.
LA Unified board members seem to understand those complications, which is why they’ve delayed the start of their ban until January to give them time to work out the details. Petterson said those inevitable implementation hurdles underscore why it’s so necessary to bring stakeholders like parents, site leaders, teachers and students in early and in a genuinely collaborative way. Without the buy-in of everyone involved, implementation becomes a tangled mess. That’s especially true for teachers, who will be on the frontlines of enforcing any ban.
“It’s about collaborating in the very beginning, so the community and your stakeholders are part of the policymaking,” Petterson said. “We want to have a policy that ultimately reflects the values and the best interests of the community at large.”
Content Bouncing Around My Mind Palace
If you’ve followed Voice’s education reporting you know how often districts throw up firewalls to prevent us from accessing documents, like investigations into employees. The Union-Tribune recently wrote about one of the most popular strategies: bringing in lawyers and obscuring investigations behind attorney-client confidentiality.
What We’re Writing
Earlier this year, prosecutors charged Hoover High Assistant Principal Charles De Freitas with three counts related to sexual misconduct with minors, including possession of child pornography. I found it wasn’t the first time De Freitas had been accused of misconduct. Two years prior to his arrest, and just a couple of months before he was promoted to assistant principal, a parent contacted Superintendent Lamont Jackson alleging De Freitas was sexually harassing their child.