CLAYTON — On a recent field trip, most Wydown Middle School students were staring at their cellphones during the entire bus ride, one parent said.
“Everybody was independently doing their own thing,†said Jennifer McDaniel. “School bus trips used to be fun and wild. Here it just felt isolating and not the point of getting out and doing something as a community.â€
McDaniel and more than 500 others have signed in support of a cellphone ban starting this fall to make Clayton schools “a sanctuary from the deluge of content that frequently brings out the worst in people and is bad for focused thinking.â€
The 2,400-student district has a “technology misconduct†policy that includes the use of personal electronic devices in schools, but each building principal can enforce their own rules. The use of phones in class is prohibited at Wydown and Clayton High School.
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But parents and teachers say enforcement is spotty particularly at the high school, where they report kids texting home, taking their phones on bathroom breaks and listening to music through ear buds.
A group of parents plan to at the Clayton School Board meeting Wednesday and ask the board to vote on a new policy this summer. One of the mothers, Genevieve Caffrey, is leading a book club for Clayton parents starting with “The Anxious Generation†by Jonathan Haidt.
“There’s a sense of urgency, especially among parents who have middle school and high school students, to revise the district’s cell phone policies because they see their children increasingly distracted by the presence of cell phones in schools,†Caffrey said. “The message is that parents have a lot of work to do, but we can’t do it alone. We need to work with the whole community, including the schools, to figure out how to really fight this mental health crisis that has been on the rise since the spread of the smartphone.â€
Clayton spokesman Luke Heitert said in a statement that the district “firmly believes in the importance of parent voice and recognizes that cellphone use in schools is a key issue for our school community. We are committed to working collaboratively with our stakeholders to navigate this important conversation.â€
The hold that phones have on American teenagers is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom.
Last year, Florida became the first state to crack down on phones in school. A new law requires all Florida public schools to ban student cellphone use during class time and block access to social media on district Wi-Fi. Oklahoma, Vermont and Kansas have also recently introduced what is becoming known as “phone-free schools†legislation.
Two U.S. senators — Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, and Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat — introduced legislation in December that would require a federal study on the effects of cellphone use in schools on students’ mental health and academic performance.
Nationally, 77% of U.S. schools say they prohibit cellphones at school for non-academic use, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But that number is misleading, parents and teachers said.
“I had a guest speaker and observed my class from the back of the room and realized that my kids were watching movies and shopping online most of the time,†one Clayton High teacher told the parents organizing for the ban.
Pushback has come from parents who fear being cut off from their kids in an emergency. The national advocacy group Phone-Free Schools Movement advises schools to make exceptions for students with special educational and medical needs, and to inform parents of expert guidance that phones can be a dangerous distraction during an emergency.
Several local school districts have purchased Yondr magnetic pouches which secure phones during the school day. Ferguson-Florissant School District now distributes the pouches to every student in sixth through 12th grade. Riverview Gardens spent about $25,000 for 1,300 of the pouches for high school students last year. When students arrive at school, they turn off the phones and lock them in the pouches. The pouch is unlocked at a docking station as students exit the school.
The company’s marketing materials claim that a majority of the 900 school districts that use the pouches report improvements in academic performance, student behavior and classroom engagement.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.