This year’s school transition might be harder but will hopefully lead to various areas of growth

Cell phone policy in place at ISD 318

School has officially started and this year in the Grand Rapids schools and in Bigfork school, for ISD 318, students will have an even tougher transition with the new cell phone policy: no cell phones in class.

The state Legislature mandated school districts adopt a cell phone policy by March 2025, and many school districts got ahead of the game in Minnesota. They spent the summer crafting a policy to put in place by the first day of school.

In School District 318, phones will be allowed during passing time and lunch. That’s it.

More than 70 percent of high school teachers say student phone distraction is a “major problem” according to a survey conducted by Pew Research.

During open forums for school board meetings, substitute teachers have come to speak about the struggles they face trying to teach students who have only one focus: the computer in their hands.

The high schools in Grand Rapids and Bigfork will have students put their phones in a designated location at the beginning of each class period. While some schools are simply requiring the phone be turned off and put away, these schools have taken the next step to try and aim at what’s best for the students. Superintendent Matt Grose said, “a policy is only as good as your ability to enforce it,” and hopes that the designated place where the phones will go will help enforce the rule and ensure that students follow it.

According to MPR News, some schools are being even more restrictive. At United South Central (USC) Schools in Wells, phones will be locked in a Yondr pouch. Once a phone is put in the pouch, they can only be unlocked with a special magnet that the school will have.

While most elementary students don’t bring a phone to school (if they have one), middle school students and high school students do. A main cause of concern with phones is distractions and the data that shows how long a notification can distract a student for. Studies have shown that one notification can take a student’s mind away from the present for at least five minutes. And most students aren’t getting just one notification. On average, most high school students get over 200 notifications a day. One study shows that more than 20% of those notifications are coming during the school day.

If the phone is in a backpack or pocket and the familiar buzz of a notification is heard, many students are taken away from the world around them as they think and ponder what exactly that notification could be.

Over a decade ago, around 90% of public schools prohibited cell phone use. In 2015-16, that shrank to 65%. By the 2019-2020 school year, bans were in place at 76% of the schools, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

In Utah, one middle school classroom tested how many notifications would come through in a class period: the students turned their phones on loud and tallied the pings that rang through– leading up to more than 500 notifications in forty minutes: 485 text messages, 123 social media notifications, and 54 other notifications.

The teacher for this classroom said a task that would have easily taken twenty minutes twenty years ago now takes much longer.

While many parents, community members, and teachers support the phone policy, some parents are worried about not being able to get a hold of their children. That’s the crux of the dilemma though: when a student is at school do they need to be in communication with their parents?

Some parents also believe their child is responsible enough to use a cell phone in a responsible way.

Superintendent Grose mentioned that there are, of course, medical exceptions if a phone is used in a medical way. If there’s an emergency, the school has the contact information they need and parents can call the office if they need to get a hold of their child.

Some schools have already put this policy into play. The results have shown that students admit to having more dialogue with their peers and interacting face-to-face in a way that maybe hadn’t been done before.

For students who decide to not follow the policy, an immediate consequence will be confiscation of the phone for the remainder of the school day. Continued violations can lead to a meeting with school staff, the student, and parents to talk about the violation.

A Maple Grove school started banning phones last year and with it they have seen more engagement, more participation in class discussions, more communication in hallways, and bullying incidents and bad behavior were down.

This policy is in effect this school year and parents will hopefully see the benefits of their student’s academic and social life soon.