UPPER PENINSULA, Michigan (WLUC) – Upper Peninsula school districts are taking different approaches to cell phones in schools.
Some leave this up to individual teachers and others have banned cell phones in the classroom altogether.
Susan Tollefson, superintendent of schools in the L’Anse area, says the distractions have even penetrated into grades below high school.
“We always have a difficult task ahead of us from the start,” Tollefson said. “Educating young people, especially middle school age, is difficult because there are many distractions.”
On Monday, the L’Anse Region School Board issued stricter policies regarding cell phones.
The district no longer allows cell phones in the classroom for high school students and has even banned cell phone use entirely for grades K through 8 during recess.
Principal Susan Tollefson says younger students already have short attention spans, and distractions make them even shorter.
“During class time, we need to focus on the teacher and the lesson and what the students want to do in the classroom,” Tollefson said. “Instead of being distracted by what’s happening on their phones.”
NICE Community Schools has introduced a similar policy starting this year.
Superintendent Bryan DeAugustine says it addresses the damage cell phones do to students’ mental health.
“We know that anxiety and depression increase with a student’s screen time,” DeAugustine said. “This is true for adults as well, we really need to look at this as a society.”
With these new guidelines, Tollefson and DeAugustine have a message for parents.
“It’s OK to say no,” DeAugustine said. “Tell your student this is the rule, you’re going to follow the rule. Nothing game-changing is going to happen in that 50-minute class period. If an emergency occurs where a parent needs to reach a student, we’re here to do that.”
“Remind students because they may forget their phones,” Tollefson said. “When they come to school, remind them that they are not allowed to have their phones with them, that there are policies and rules, and that they too will be disappointed if they are not followed.”
The public schools in Escanaba, however, deal with the cell phone ban policy differently.
Superintendent Coby Fletcher says the district leaves this to the discretion of each individual teacher.
“We want to see cell phones in the classroom primarily when they are being used for some educational purpose. That’s our policy,” Fletcher said. “We really leave a lot of that up to the teachers.”
Since mobile phones are part of our everyday lives, Fletcher wants to teach his students how to use them responsibly.
He says classes don’t end when students go home.
“There are now parental control tools that, to my knowledge, virtually every mobile operator offers,” said Fletcher. “I would encourage parents to be very active in using and setting up these parental controls.”
Regardless of a district’s policies, all three school superintendents say this is a good time to remind students to unwind and live in the here and now.
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