Cellphone Pouches to be Piloted at Schools Across Delaware

This article was originally published in Spotlight Delaware.

The 2021-22 academic year was the hardest for George Read Middle School Principal Nicholas Wolfe, an educator for 17 years. It was the school’s first full year back since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wolfe recognized that his students were struggling and started researching the effects of cellphones and social media on adolescents’ mental health.

“It was one of those things where it’s like, I can’t unknow now what I know, and I need to take action,” he said. “From there, it’s like, ‘All right, what are the ways that I can get to a phone-free environment here at George Read Middle School?’ ”

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Wolfe has utilized an “expectation and enforcement of the expectation” structure to create a phone-free environment at his school since the 2022-23 academic year , but does not have a phone ban. The expectation in George Read Middle School is that phones will not be used because they’re out of sight, with YONDR phone pouches being the tool to enforce that expectation.

One line item in this year’s one-time supplemental spending bill aims to eliminate distractions from phones and social media in classrooms throughout Delaware.

Lawmakers approved $250,000 to test an expansion of such cell-hiding pouches, like those made by tech company YONDR, in other state middle and high schools, along with other measures.

The Delaware Department of Education will be responsible for gathering experts, creating the system for the pilot program and later evaluating it. The department will also create the regulations for the applications districts will use when applying for funding.

State Sen. Eric Buckson (R-Dover), a former educator, voiced strong support for the pilot program and said the inspiration for its creation came from teacher feedback during Teacher Appreciation Days.

“I asked [teachers], ‘Hey, if you were king or queen for a day and could write the rules, what’s one of the first things that you would do to get better control of the hallways and the classrooms?’” Buckson said. “Either No. 1 or No. 2 on that list is to take the phones.”

The Delaware State Education Association, the union that represents state public school teachers, feels encouraged that the General Assembly is listening to educators and trying to find solutions and resources to address issues like behavioral issues in schools, said Taylor Hawk, the director of legislation and political organizing at DSEA.

“That is absolutely encouraging, and we definitely see the cellphone pilot as another example of legislators being responsive to issues that they’re hearing from educators in their districts and we look forward to seeing the results,” Hawk said.

Multiple school districts across the country, like the Los Angeles Unified School District or the entirety of Florida, have implemented their own phone pouch policies in schools.

Critics of phone bans in schools — whether through using pouches or by having a strict “no phones” policy — have raised concerns over how students would be able to contact their families during emergencies, especially in an era of school shootings.

Wolfe has found a middle ground between having students contact their families when needed, and enforcing his phone-free environment.

While every classroom at George Read Middle is equipped with a phone, students can also go to the office and ask an administrator if they can use their phone to call home, Wolfe said. Students must make sure their phone is out of sight before returning to class.

Parents, lawmakers and educators in Delaware are also concerned with the state’s test scores in recent years. Only 24% of eighth grade students were proficient in math during the 2022-23 school year, and 41% were proficient in English/language arts.

Experts and advocates hope to see better behavior and test scores after the pilot’s implementation. Studies have found a strong correlation between media multitasking and attention problems and evidence for potential detrimental long-term effects among early adolescents.

Kenneth Shores, assistant professor at the University of Delaware who specializes in education policy, has also seen adult learners be distracted by their phones during college classes.

“It’s just like a thing that your mind goes to if you’re slightly bored or challenged by material,” Shores said. “Removing those kinds of easy distractors, I think, is great, because it keeps students engaged on the material.”

Not everyone is convinced that phone bans are an easy solution to rectifying behavior and improving test scores.

Removing phones from classrooms will not single-handedly fix the issues within Delaware’s education system, said Britney Mumford, the executive director of DelawareCAN, an advocacy group that works on public education improvement and equity.

“It’s going to lead to more engagement, and paired with other things, will hopefully improve test scores,” Mumford said. “We don’t need to treat it as, ‘Oh, we’ve cracked the code, we’ve figured out what the problem is and this is going to solve it.”

While Hawk has heard phone policies posed as a possible solution in conversations about behavioral issues in the classroom, it has come up in addition to other solutions like more resources for mental health professionals, she said.

Buckson expects that the DOE will run out of funds before schools’ needs for phone pouches are satisfied, and has already had “a couple” of schools reach out to him directly.

Spotlight Delaware is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Spotlight Delaware maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor-in-Chief Jacob Owens for questions: jowens@spotlightdelaware.org . Follow Spotlight Delaware on Facebook and X .