Colorado school district implements new ‘no phone’ policy

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. ( KXRM ) — One of Colorado’s biggest school districts, Colorado Springs School District 11 , announced a new “no cell phone” policy for the upcoming school year, and many parents are not happy about it.

District 11 joined other schools across the nation, announcing a phone-free space for the upcoming school year on Tuesday morning. Falcon School District 49 , northeast of Colorado Springs, discussed banning phones in the classroom earlier this year, which was also met with debate.

District 11 said banning cell phones in the classroom is part of an effort to get rid of distractions,
but now there is a debate between parents as many are worried about not being able to reach their child in case of an emergency.

“This move is made to bring back that human-to-human interaction, that problem solving, that collaboration in the classroom where students are really taking ownership of their own relationship building. They’re working with each other,” said Jessica Wise, executive director for management for D11.

“At the beginning of the school day, middle school and high school students will lock their phones into this pouch, the special magnet that locks. At the end of the day, they can unlock it,” added Wise.

She said elementary school students will be asked that all devices be kept in their backpacks.

Teachers will have a key to unlock each phone in an emergency and there will be unlocking stations throughout each building.

“It’ll be managed through multiple stations so that we can get efficiency in and out of the building and each school is working on their own plan on what is the best location for those stations to maximize efficiency for that process,” said Wise.

Research shows that 84% of schools with similar policies saw a change in student engagement, 72% saw a positive change in behavior and 68% saw positive changes in academic performance.

However, many parents are not happy about District 11’s change. One user on Facebook wrote, “I pay for the phone, so the only one that gets to say my kids can or cannot have it is me.”

Another person wrote, “If students couldn’t be trusted not to abuse phones during class time, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

Parents will need to call the main office to get a hold of their children during the day, which has raised concerns in emergency situations.

“Hey, we’re not naive to the fact that there will be hiccups with the implementation of this. We don’t expect it to go perfectly on day one. It’s, first of all, a tremendous shift that we’re very empathetic to our whole community about what a big shift this is, and so we want to be thoughtful to the problems that could occur,” said Wise.

The district said having too much contact during an emergency can lead to misinformation and create confusion for first responders.

“The last thing you want when there’s an active shooting in the building is a bunch of cell phones going off, giving away people’s locations and spreading misinformation when we really want the school to be that true main up-to-date point of information that tells parents what’s going on,” Wise added.

Students with medical needs who use their phones to check things like insulin counts, for example, will be given medical pouches without having to lock their phones away. Any parents with questions or with a child in need of accommodations are asked to call the district.

The district is asking for parents to be patient while they finalize details.

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