This year, Roosevelt expanded the policy to cover all electronics, including Google Chromebooks, when not being used directly in the classroom. Also, the policy allows no room for caveats. Once a student’s electronics are spotted by a teacher or administrator, they are left in the front office for the day. Students collect confiscated phones after school. This eliminates power struggles between teachers and students, according to Leacham.
Math teacher Melanie Buntichai said it was a challenge for individual teachers to enforce their own cell phone policies in the classroom before the ban. If she contacted a student who was using their phone incorrectly in class, it could take up to ten minutes of class time. Since Roosevelt implemented a school-wide policy, “students don’t fight back as much” and suspensions take less time, she said.
Leacham said students now interact more during lunch. “It’s good to watch them, you know, as children; dating each other,” she said.
Roosevelt demands Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship tutorials for students during advisory hours. For the 2024-25 school year, Roosevelt aims for students to complete four lessons, according to Leacham. The school also provides Common Sense Media resources for parents that cover appropriate and responsible use of technology.
Answers to students and parents
While parents were on board with the electronics policy at Roosevelt, students were harder to win. Leicham said transparency helps when explaining to students why smartphones and other devices don’t belong on campus. “Middle school is the time to build relationships with others,” and middle schoolers “need less screen time and more interaction with others,” Leacham said.
Psychologist Jacqueline Nessi thinks there is some truth in this. But “it’s not always the case that when students are using screens in general, they’re not socializing at all,” said Nessi, who studies the effects of technology on children. Increased focus on social interactions is a a mark of early adolescent developmentaccording to Nessie. However, when it comes to fitting in, smartphones can be both a source of disconnection and connection for middle school students. On the one hand, a student may feel left out if they do not have access to the same technology as their peers. On the other hand, a student who feels “marginalized in their offline community” can find belonging through technology “even if they’re in an online environment,” Nessi said.
Like Lindsay, Roosevelt’s cell phone policy draws Eiko Sugano to the school. She also hoped to enroll her child there for sixth grade, but he ended up at another school further down their lottery list. For Sugano, the blanket ban on cellphones and electronics is what initially drew her to Roosevelt. “That was definitely one of my biggest factors,” she said. Sugano’s son does not have a cell phone. She prefers that he engages in person rather than on a device, and learns to deal with everyday challenges, like missing a bus, without the aid of a smartphone.
Children need “increasing independence as they age (and) there is value in giving them opportunities to solve problems,” Nessi said. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to parental decisions about which devices to allow teens to use and when, she added.
Last year, Lindsey held a conversation at the college and in an online community for families about cell phone and electronics policies at her child’s elementary school last year. “The parents are feeling so alone in thisshe said. Coming together as a school community provided a much-needed space to “share information between parents about how they’re navigating things or what they’re worried about,” she continued.
While Lindsey is hopeful for the future of student cell phone use both in and out of school, she wants those conversations and electronics to happen at a faster pace because kids are struggling right now. “Right now, I can’t even think of a bigger issue that parents have to navigate,” she said.
No to categorical prohibitions, yes to guided practice
Bans on cell phones and electronic devices spread even after Roosevelt. Some large school districts such as the Los Angeles Unified School District and New York Public Schools are looking for or have already applied cell phone bans throughout the area. But Kulata, ISTE’s CEO, thinks those bans are too hasty. He said banning phones removes opportunities for students to learn to use technology properly and effectively. While the ban may seem like a satisfactory solution, “it doesn’t really prepare kids to be successful down the road,” he said. If students don’t learn digital etiquette in school, “where are they going to learn it?” Tower asked.
Instead, Culatta advocates for school electronics policies that counsel students and “create healthy environments” for technology use. Writing these expectations in clear and positive language is important. Instead of telling students all the things they can’t do, Tower suggested that schools clearly define norms that students can do can follow. Underlying those technology guidelines should also be clear guidelines about what the expectations are when students have violated the code of conduct, Kulata said. The policy should also be age-appropriate.
According to Culatta, having technology guidelines instead of a ban opens up the opportunity for learning moments to remind students about the responsible and appropriate use of technology. The absence of a ban does not mean the absence of consequences, Kulata said. He also said the temporary ban could help usher in a more robust and nuanced technology policy. “It’s perfectly appropriate to pause and say ‘wait a second, we need all the devices to go away for a minute while we talk about what the norms are, while we talk about what this looks like,’ and then start bringing them back,” said he.
