Cleveland Metropolitan School District students headed back to school next week will have to check cell phones at the door.
CMSD introduced a policy to restrict cell phone use during school hours to comply with a new state law that took effect in May. The district has left it up to each school to figure out a system for storing phones. According to the district’s website, some schools will lock phones in personal pouches given to each student. Other schools can create their own storage methods such as collecting phones in bins assigned to each homeroom.
CMSD did not reply to questions about the rollout of the new policy in time for this story’s publication.
While most students return to school on Aug. 19, year-round schools have already started back up after a brief summer break. At those schools, phone collection has gone smoothly so far, said Shari Obrenski, president of the Cleveland Teachers Union.
“Our building leaders are reporting that it’s going pretty well and that the students have been pretty compliant so far,” she said.
Teachers won’t be the ‘phone police’
According to CMSD’s contract with the Cleveland Teachers Union, school administrators, not teachers, are responsible for securing phones before students get to class. The union doesn’t want teachers collecting phones, Obrenski said, because doing that could set up conflict with students.
“We don’t want teachers to be the phone police,” she said.
In schools using the pouch system, each student will get their own pouch. If a student brings their phone to school, administrators will lock the phone in the pouch at the beginning of the day. Students keep their pouches with them all day until school employees unlock them at dismissal. The district’s CEO,Warren Morgan, said during a June school board meeting that school administrators aren’t responsible for lost or damaged phones.
Will cell phone restrictions help students?
Cell phone use in school is both a distraction to learning and a safety issue, Obrenski said.
“[Students] would set up fights, and then they would live stream them,” she said. “They would text each other so that they could keep away from security officers.”
Obrenski anticipates some pushback from students as schools roll out this new policy. In other districts with cell phone bans, students have figured out ways to hang onto their phones or cut open their personal pouches, she said.
In cases where students violate the cell phone policy, CMSD has laid out consequences in the student code of conduct. Students can receive a written warning, and administrators can confiscate a phone for a day or as long as an entire school year.
Still, Obrenski remains hopeful that students will ultimately appreciate not having their phones during the day. She pointed to school districts in Akron and Dayton, which have both banned cell phones recently.
“Students said, ‘Yeah, I didn’t really like giving up my phone, but I realized that, oh, it was easier for me to pay attention in class,’” Obrenski said. “Or, ‘Oh, I’m talking with my friends for a change. We’re having a meaningful conversation.’ We expect that we’ll see similar results in Cleveland.”