BRUNSWICK COUNTY, N.C. — Across the nation, schools are limiting access to students’ cell phones in the classroom in an effort to keep students distraction free and keep them from misusing their phones during the school day.
In North Carolina, school districts like Wake County and Charlotte-Mecklenburg have joined in on that effort, and others are following suit. In Brunswick County Schools, a new policy is going into effect this school year that will keep cell phones out of students’ hands and locked away.
Dale Cole has always felt called to education. He was a coach, an English teacher and even a principal, but he knew he wanted to do more. Now, he’s the superintendent of Brunswick County Schools.
“I love my job, I love working with kids and seeing them excel,” Cole said. “I decided I wanted to try to have a little larger impact.”
To help kids excel, the school district said it has a new policy going into effect to take away the distraction of smart phones.
“Cell phones are required to be taken out, turned completely off and put away for the entirety of the day,” Cole said.
Brunswick County Schools is going phone free in an effort to help students stay focused during the school day.
“Research is very clear that cell phones are very much a distraction to student learning,” Cole said. The new policy will also help with students misusing their cell phones, he said.
“We’re dealing with a lot of cyberbullying, social media bullying during the day,” Cole said. “People taking pictures of people when they shouldn’t and that sort of thing.”
Two of the district’s middle schools will be taking this policy a step further and using phone-locking devices called Yondr pouches.
“This is the Yondr Pouch that each of our students will get at Town Creek Middle and Cedar Grove Middle,” Cole said as he gave a demonstration of how the pouches work. “As you can see it’s plenty large enough to hold a cell phone, once they place it inside, they just close it, push the button down, and then it’s locked.”
Students will be able to unlock the pouch using a magnet at the end of the day as they exit the building. Cole said he’s confident this new policy will help students flourish.
“So the point of the Yondr Pouch and the point of the policy in requiring them to turn their phone off and put it in their backpack during the day, is to remove that distraction,” Cole said. “And we know that without a doubt if we can get them to do that, it’s going to improve student learning outcomes for everyone.”
Brunswick County Schools will be collecting the data from the two schools using the Yondr pouches and the other schools that don’t require them and will determine if they’re worth the investment in the other schools for next year.
Cole said he spoke with parents at a recent open house and most of them supported the initiative. Parents at other districts however report concerns over banning phones in school due to safety concerns.
Just across the river, New Hanover County Schools is considering using Yondr pouches as well to prevent distraction and misuse of phones during the school day.