How US middle school won cellphone battle
An assistant principal’s experiment sparked initial objections from students and some parents, but it has already generated profound and unexpected results, writes Joanna
When Raymond Dolphin became assistant principal of a middle school in Manchester, Connecticut two years ago, it was clear to him that the kids were not all right.
The problem was cellphones. Students were using the devices in class, despite a rule against it. Social media was exacerbating nearly every conflict among students. When Dolphin walked the hallways or surveyed the cafeteria, he invariably saw heads bent over screens.
So in December, Dolphin did something unusual: He banned them.
The experiment at Illing Middle School sparked objections from students and some parents, but it has already generated profound and unexpected results.
Dolphin likened prohibiting cellphones to curbing consumption of sugary foods. “In a matter of months, you start feeling better,” he said.
What unfolded at the school reflects a broader struggle under way in education as some administrators turn to increasingly drastic measures to limit the reach of a technology that is both ubiquitous and endlessly distracting.
Scores of schools across the country from California to Indiana to Pennsylvania - have taken similar steps to remove cellphones altogether rather than rely on rules around their use.
Those decisions come amid rising bipartisan alarm over the ways cellphones and social media may be harming children, concerns that have led to warnings from the US surgeon general and the health commissioner of New York City. About a third of US teens report that they use a social media site “almost constantly”.
Dolphin, 45, wears rectangular glasses and carries a walkie-talkie in his belt. He became a teacher right out of college, made a detour into banking, then returned to education a decade ago. It’s only in recent years that the presence of phones at school has become “overwhelming”, he said. When a fellow educator in nearby Hartford recommended a way to blunt their impact, Dolphin jumped at it.
At 7.50 on a March morning, Dolphin hustled toward his usual spot near the school entrance to make sure the system was working. Moments later, more than 800 middle school students - some boisterous, some sleepy – began flowing through the doors in a river of bulky backpacks and puffy jackets.
Those who had cellphones in their hands slipped them into individual grey pouches made of synthetic rubber. They clicked the magnetic lock at the top of their pouches shut, then placed them into their backpacks or held them up to show teachers. The pouches would stay with them, locked, until dismissal at 2.45pm.
Introducing the pouches – made by a California-based company called Yondr was no cakewalk. Many students arriving that morning said they were still sore. “I cried,” said Michael Wilson, 14, about when he learned his phone would become inaccessible during the school day. He signed a last-ditch petition posted on the cafeteria wall urging the administration to reconsider.
Chioma Brown, in a grey sweatsuit and Crocs, slid her cellphone with a glittery cover into her pouch and locked it. She, too, was mad at first. As time passed, her feelings have shifted. “You can focus more” on classes, she said. These days she sometimes forgets that she has her phone with her.
Teachers who were initially sceptical that the pouches would work say they’ve been transformative. Dan Connolly, an eighth-grade science teacher, said he used to repeat the same reminder at the start of each period, six times a day: Put away your cellphones and take out your headphones.
“Now the first thing I say is ‘Good morning’, not ‘Take your AirPods out,’” Connolly said.
It’s not as though Illing had allowed cellphones in class previously. Like threequarters of all US schools, it didn’t. But such policies rely on individual teachers to carry them out, making them effectively an “unenforceable wish”, in the words of Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at New York University who has called for banning phones from schools.
Justin Pistorius, a maths teacher at Illing, said that enforcing the prior no-cellphone policy led to power struggles with students, who frequently complained. They would say, “Why are you the dude that’s doing this? The lady last year let us use them. You’re the jerk,’” Pistorius said (at first using a word other than “jerk”).
Enter Yondr, a company founded in 2014 whose magnetically locking pouches are also used to store cellphones during concerts, theatrical events and professional exams. Lately, though, its sales to schools have exploded.
Last year, the number of US schools using the pouches rose to 2000, said company spokesperson Sarah Leader, more than double the figure in 2022.
Schools from Manhattan to rural Texas have bought the pouches and distributed them to students. In Providence, Rhode Island, all six of the city’s middle schools and two of its high schools - a total of 4500 students – are now using them.
Some educators turned to the pouches out of desperation. When students returned to school full-time after learning remotely during the pandemic, their relationship to their phones had changed dramatically, said Carol Kruser, who was then principal at Chicopee High School in Massachusetts.
Instead of checking their phones at lunch, they were watching YouTube videos in class and refusing to put away the devices, Kruser said. Teachers were begging for help. Kruser introduced Yondr pouches at her high school in the spring of 2021.
“I really wasn’t sure if it was going to be career suicide,” said Kruser, 55, who is now an assistant superintendent in Chicopee. “I just thought it was that important.”
Fast-forward three years: The use of the pouches has spread to neighbouring school districts. This past fall, Massachusetts even launched a grant programme to pay for them.
“We have these devices which we know are at best habit-forming and at worst addictive that are increasingly linked to depression and loneliness,” said Susan Linn, a psychologist, lecturer at Harvard Medical School and author of Who’s Raising the Kids? So why would we have them in schools?”
At Illing, Dolphin presented the idea to the principal and the district leadership this past fall. Both were enthusiastic, and the school spent US$31,000 (NZ$52,315) to buy the equipment. Parents and students proved harder to persuade.
Objections from parents fell into three main categories. Some worried about reaching their children in an emergency. A small number had children struggling with anxiety who used their cellphones to listen to music or access meditation apps. Others just liked the convenience of being in touch with their children during the day.
The school reminded parents that there is at least one landline phone in every classroom – and in many cases two. Teachers also still have their cellphones in case they need to call 911 (the pouches also are not “bank vaults”, Dolphin added, and can be cut open in an emergency).
In the worst-case scenario – a school shooting - students should focus on hiding and staying quiet, Dolphin said. “The whole idea that you want every kid to be taking out a phone and calling parents is