JAMESVILLE-DEWITT SCHOOL DISTRICT – The Jamesville-DeWitt School Board held a virtual public forum May 28 to assist in shaping a district policy limiting in-school smartphone use.
Anticipating a New York State requirement expected to be enacted going into the 2025-2026 academic year banning the use of cell phones on school grounds during school hours, the Zoom forum shared preliminary stakeholder input previously collected through a recent ThoughtExchange survey.
Dr. Sharon Archer, the vice president of J-D’s school board, said the survey results from 680 participants showed that concerns about restricting devices in school largely revolved around the logistics of how students would get in contact with parents, guardians and anyone else when necessary.
That includes handling situations where a student doesn’t feel well and needs to go home early, if after-school activities are unexpectedly canceled or rescheduled, if they forget their lunch, or another emergency arises and information needs to be relayed quickly during the day.
Another comment expressed discomfort with the idea of having to go to the main office or clerical center to make a personal call instead of privately away from others.
Archer said there were also questions about how exactly the phone policy would be enforced by administrators and other staff, but that generally the people who interacted with the survey showed support for limiting the use of phones, believing doing so would positively impact student learning and classroom concentration while promoting more face-to-face socializing.
During that evening’s forum, Principal John Courain from Durgee Junior High School in the Baldwinsville Central School District was invited to provide insights and reflections about his school building’s experiences over the past year implementing a bell-to-bell cell phone ban.
His school’s specific approach calls for students’ electronic devices to be turned off and tucked away prior to the start of the school day. What students do with their phones is up to them, Courain said, but the point is for phones to not be seen, heard or used during school hours.
Courain said that policy and the school’s in-place communication system with the outside world have “absolutely” worked so far and that Durgee students are getting used to the expectations set for them after initially not wanting to give up their phones.
The Baldwinsville school first elicited feedback from parents and guardians as the typical gatekeepers of the phones with the understanding that they should be able to contact their kids in the event of an emergency.
At the same time, there was an understanding that students being constantly connected to their phones could create distractions, aid cyber bullying, and lead to unfettered access to inappropriate content, Courain said.
That was balanced with the acknowledgement that cell phones “grease the wheels of life,” he said.
“Our families are busy, sometimes to the point of stress, and cutting out that middleman when we need to update our kids about their after-school plans or any other family matter is highly valuable,” Courain said.
Still, the junior high school felt there was a need to “recapture” students’ attention, heighten their productivity from one instructional period to the next, and regain the precious time meant for learning that was being lost to phone screens.
Because the goal is to have a learning-focused and distraction-free environment, Durgee didn’t want to start excluding kids from the classroom or depriving them of their social lives if they used their phones in school, so its disciplinary protocol is tied to taking away the device itself and issuing a behavior referral with the third violation but not the first two.
Courain said the policy has resulted in students double-checking they have what they need in their backpacks the night before, communicating better with their parents in the morning on the way to school, and naturally becoming more responsible.
The state’s new legislation prohibiting cell phone use in schools has been endorsed by the New York State Legislature and signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul as part of the annual budget process, J-D Superintendent Dr. Peter Smith said.
The law requires districts to inform parents how they can connect with their children during the day, and schools must also allow the use of district-provided internet-enabled devices such as laptops and tablets.
As far as current practices in J-D’s schools, there’s a bell-to-bell ban on cell phone use already in effect at the middle school on Randall Road lasting from 8 a.m. to 2:50 p.m.
At J-D High School, cell phones are not to be used during instructional periods unless a teacher gives permission, but they’re allowed in the hallways and during lunch.
At J-D’s elementary schools, there aren’t as many instances to address, but the policies in those buildings are essentially the same as at the middle school, Smith said.
At the end of the virtual forum, the participants watching over Zoom moved into small-group breakout sessions to provide feedback.
