GRAND PRAIRIE — School districts across North Texas are cracking down on cellphone use in the classroom. This week, Grapevine-Colleyville and Northwest adopted stricter policies, but Grand Prairie ISD is going a step further than the usual ban.

“The problem with this is that the teachers have to find it and see it,” said Larry Jones, the principal of South Grand Prairie High School. “We want them to focus on the lesson. We don’t want them to focus on whether Jonny took out his phone.”

To minimize distractions in the classroom, every student at Grand Prairie and South Grand Prairie high schools will receive a Yondr bag this year. They are required to lock their phones in it every day. A survey of GPISD staff found that more than 90% support the program.

“Based on the data we’ve collected in other districts, we believe this will enhance the social-emotional learning opportunities for our students,” Jones said. “It will allow them to communicate more with their friends, to actually sit down and talk.”

Yondr, the company behind the bags, says schools credit them with improving student achievement, teacher retention and mental health. GPISD says it was inspired to create this pilot program after seeing how well it worked in Richardson ISD. Dallas ISD plans to test the bags at three of its campuses this school year as well.

“Even though parents may not have much direct influence over school policies, it’s helpful to be familiar with them and understand the framework so you can figure out what makes sense for your child within that framework,” says Dr. Celia Heppner, child psychologist at Children’s Health.

Dr. Heppner believes these types of measures can be effective in the classroom, as research shows that even the presence of a cell phone can negatively affect attention and memory. However, she says it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.

“Children with mental health or medical problems need quick and easy access to a parent or a doctor, someone they can connect with,” she said.

Parents also expressed safety concerns and feared they would not be able to reach their child immediately in the event of an emergency. However, the school district said there are still multiple ways to contact a student.

“They can call the office or come into the office,” Jones said. “If it’s an emergency and the student needs to talk to a parent, the administrator can open those bags and give the student access to their phone. We don’t want this to be a big deal or a big incident for a student. We want them to be able to communicate how they need to communicate, but we want to remind them that the focus is on learning.”

Jones says they will talk to students about the Yondr bags during the first week of school and then officially roll them out during the second week. South Grand Prairie High School is hosting a meeting for parents to discuss the new cell phone policy on Monday, August 5th from 7-8 p.m. It will be held in the high school theater.