How do you get teenagers to put their phones away for hours at a time? That is the question many schools are trying to solve as bans on cellphones sweep the U.S. — more than 30 states so far now restrict their use during the school day.
One of those states is Kentucky, where all public school classes must now be cellphone free. Districts can set their own policies to achieve that goal. Some collect phones at the start of each class; others allow students to have them only during their lunch period.
The Jefferson County school district, which includes Louisville, set a "bell-to-bell" policy, opting to keep students phone free from the moment they walk in the building until they leave at the end of the day.
To see how the policy is working, NPR visited the Academy @ Shawnee, a magnet middle and high school in Louisville.
Students "know the expectations now"
Before the restrictions, "we didn't even know the majority of the kids were learning, because they weren't responding [in class]," says Hollie Smith, now in her second year as the school's executive principal. "They were just doing things on their phones."
Smith says she can see the changes throughout the school: "Kids know the expectations now."
For one thing, there's more discourse, she says. Teachers and students feel like they are connecting. Even the cafeteria is a little bit louder — alive with conversations between students disconnected from their screens.
Even though she finds the initial results positive and encouraging, Smith is under no illusion about what the students think: "I think they absolutely hate it. Their phone is their lives — it's their world."
The big question, though, here and at thousands of schools around the country, is: Are these bans working?
In talking with educators and students at this school, there seems to be agreement — reluctant agreement from some students — that it is working. Just not exactly in the way the policy intends.
To meet the new state requirement, Shawnee invested in Yondr pouches, or locked personal pouches, to help ease the transition. The pouches, widely used in many schools, are like neoprene sleeves that lock and unlock only with very strong magnets.
Jefferson County's ban echoes those in many schools, and it reflects what research points to as the best approach to restricting cellphones in schools. "At the end of the day," Smith says, "we have to do our kids a service. And … they have to be engaged to get the service that we're providing."
Finding hacks and work-arounds
Jayden O'Neil, a senior at Shawnee, still doesn't see the point. "All the students hate it," she says. "I think they're gonna rebel more."
When the ban went into effect in August, each student received a pouch with their name on it. Immediately, says O'Neil, students began finding hacks to get around the system.
"Most kids either brought a spare phone or they said they didn't have a phone," she explained. "Or they broke the pouches — they cut them open."
"People had multiple extra phones," added Quani'e Lanier, a fellow senior. Some students brought old phones in to distribute to their friends — decoy phones, Lanier says, to put in the pouches.
Both students are less than a semester away from graduation and looking forward to moving on. Lanier says she is off to college to become a nurse. O'Neil has enlisted in the Navy and will start basic training this summer. Both say one of the big problems with the ban is that they feel like adults and should be in charge of their own possessions.
The new policy has rules and lays out consequences for not following it, including surrendering your phone and a call to parents.
But Lanier says those consequences are "not enough for people to care."
"I think we've become more productive"
Despite their annoyance, some students NPR spoke with said it is making a difference in their classes.
"People know they're going to get in trouble if they keep it out," says Joseph Jolly, a junior and a student aide in the library.
Nevertheless, as we spoke with students in the library, the bell rang and students began to move between classes. Through the library windows, we could see kids walking and chatting, but a few had headphones on and one had a phone out, taking a selfie video.
But Jolly said we probably would not see the same behavior in the classroom: "They've started to actually focus on work, and I think we've become more productive because of that."
In other words, the actual policy set forth by the school — that phones must be in their pouches — is widely disregarded, Jolly said. When asked where his pouch was, he responded: "It's in my house, I think."
But he adds that the new restrictions have led to an unspoken agreement: That by mutual consent, students are refraining from using their phones in class and educators are leaving well enough alone.
Where was his phone? "Truth be told, it's in my pocket right now," he said. "But … I'm not doing anything though. That's the thing!"
A shortage on the library shelves
Anton Caldwell, Shawnee's librarian for more than 20 years, says he knew right away the ban was working. The number of students visiting the library increased, and so did the number of books they're reading:
"I've already tripled the number of checkouts that I had for the entire year last year, so far this school year."
While the ban may not be the sweeping, cold-turkey approach to technology that the district expected, he says it is pushing students to unplug. And there are some books he just cannot keep on the shelf.
"The girls are all about Jenny Han right now," he said, referring to the author of wildly popular teen romances, including To All the Boys I've Loved Before and The Summer I Turned Pretty. "I have multiple titles of all of her books, and I think I literally have one in the library right now. Because as soon as it gets checked in, it gets checked back out."
Principal Smith says that despite the differing views on the policy, it seems to have everyone working toward the same goal: "Are there kids that have their phones? Absolutely. But they're respectful enough to keep them in their pockets or find other things to do."
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