This fall, Middletown School District is continuing the policy of no cell phone use by students during the school day, given the positive outcomes observed on campuses, according to Superintendent Amy Creeden.
The district was one of the first in the area to institute such a policy last year.
“We noticed changes in classrooms that kids were engaging at a different level and asking questions that they hadn’t,” Ms. Creeden told The Epoch Times on Sept. 8.
“We also experienced a shift in more relaxed spaces such as the cafeteria,” she said, noting that the district provided resources such as board games on-site to help students enjoy each other’s company and develop personal connections off social media.
Although it’s too early to tell whether the policy improves test scores, Ms. Creeden was confident that a more engaged student body would contribute to overall academic performance.
Cell Phone Policy
Last fall, the district started a new policy of no student cell phone use during the school day, including lunch breaks and passing periods, following a half-year experiment at Monhagen and Twin Towers middle schools.
Ms. Creeden said at the time that middle and high school students had a more challenging time adapting than younger students because they were more used to being on their phones.
Per the policy, high schoolers must keep their phones inside Yondr pouches during the school day; the pouches come with special magnetic locks that can’t be opened manually.
For emergency contact needs, staff members help students open the pouches through unlocking stations.
The district is monitoring the outcome of the pouch program and considering extending it to the two middle schools, Ms. Creeden said.
Refinements and Adjustments
The cell phone policy has met with its share of parental concerns and practical challenges.“There is a sense now that families need to have access to their children whenever, wherever,” Ms. Creeden said. “So the idea of saying that we are putting cell phones away and that young people won’t have access to their personal devices poses a bit of challenge.”
She said the district used multiple virtual info sessions and in-person town halls to inform parents about the policy, including eight alone this summer.
“We provide the ‘why’ behind what we were doing and make ourselves abundantly available to families that wanted to talk about the ‘why,’” she said. “[So that we can say,] ‘Here is your feedback, here is how we digested that feedback, and here are the actions we took as a result of it.’”
One major parental concern is student cell phone access during emergencies. Ms. Creeden said the district had several safety protocols in place to protect students in emergencies.
They include fire extinguishers and bleed kits in hallways, as well as emergency kits in classrooms with medical-grade scissors that can cut open the pouches, she said.
A new panel of high school students is also being considered to help the administration get their perspectives on the policy.
“So we could understand from all and know where we need to dial in and tighten things up or shore up the process,” she said.
‘Safe Enough to Try’
Ms. Creeden said the cell phone policy rollout reflects a “safe enough to try” mentality, which allows her administration to try out new things to move the district forward.“We say that we create a plan, we get it to a spot where it feels safe enough to try it, we implement it, and we adjust it along the way,” she said. “We are not spending a very long time on planning for all the perfect solutions because the reality is that there is no perfect plan—things always come into the picture that you hadn’t anticipated.”
This year, the district also experimented with phases of the first school day for high schoolers, which drew a visit from New York State Education Department officials.
The plan featured four opening days, one tailored to each of the high school grades, during the first week.
“We were able to provide a really personalized experience for each grade level,” Ms. Creeden said. “Freshmen get to understand what the academic offerings are and what the clubs look like, whereas seniors get an intense focus on what a transition year out of high school looks like and how they can maximize it to jumpstart either their career preparedness or their college life.”
