Virginia's Charlottesville City Public Schools is completely banning cellphones for students to institute an "off and away the entire day" policy.
The school district is taking several restrictive measures to ensure students comply with the new rule, including limiting the Wi-Fi to preapproved devices, instituting disciplinary action, and requiring children to put their phones in a Yondr pouch, rendering them unusable.
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The magnetic pouches will be provided to students, a $36,590 cost to the district, according to the Daily Progress. Students will be expected to put their phones in the pouches at the beginning of the day, only to be unlocked at the end of the day.
District Superintendent Royal Gurley called child phone use an "addiction," and the district is hopeful the new policy will improve learning outcomes and student mental health — a crisis exacerbated by screen use and access to social media, many studies show.
“We know that our students are hooked on their phones. They can’t put them down,” Gurley said during an information session for parents. “Our educators say cellphones are just a disruption to teaching and learning.”
There is a two-tier disciplinary system for noncompliance with the policy. A first offense will result in a student having to go to the administration and hand in their phone, being allowed to pick it up at the end of the day. A second offense will require the parents to pick up the phone.
If a student refuses to give up the phone, they may be subjected to further disciplinary action, and if they are caught using the phone inappropriately (the district points to bullying and filming a fight as examples), students could be banned from bringing their phone on school grounds for the rest of the year.
The district says that during the first month of the policy, such instances will be recorded as "student support" as opposed to a "student referral."
According to the guidelines, teachers will also be expected to have their phones away and "model 'off and away.' They will be fully present for their students."
Not everyone in Charlottesville is pleased with the new policy, including parents, some of whom are "enraged," the Daily Progress reports.
Many parents cite safety concerns, such as an active shooter scenario where a parent would want to be able to contact their child or have their child call for help.
“It’s too extreme,” M.J. Smith, whose son is a senior in high school, told the outlet. “I think it’s in the right place, but it comes across as heavy-handed and not well thought out in light of the active anxiety that the community is facing with another school year and active shooter robocalls."
"It’s becoming expected that we’re going to have active shooter threats and lockdowns, and this policy seems to ignore that cellphones are a means to let parents know that kids are safe and vice versa," Smith added.
One mother, Sarah Norris, said she and her husband decided to get her son a cellphone after an active shooter lockdown that turned out to be a false alarm last year.
“He’s not a kid that’s ever been in trouble for using his phone in class, and I feel like all kids are being penalized for the kids that haven’t been able to follow rules,” she said. “Blanket rules across all students because of a select cohort of students aren’t falling in place doesn’t seem very sensible.”
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The policy comes as an attempt to get children to engage with each other personally, as opposed to online, and amid a growing mental health crisis among children whose emotional development can be stunted by screen time in various ways.
The policy will go into effect Wednesday, the first day of classes for the city.