In case you missed it, the Monongalia County School District will be doing away with smartphones this year.

And the policies are not being put in place to take anything away from students, Donna Talerico said Wednesday.

Rather, according to the district’s deputy superintendent, their purpose is to give back.

Like in conversation: face to face.

So socialization: face to face.

She said it was the circumstances where you had to say things in real life, in real time, as opposed to clicking on an electronic message, which could be intimidating and blunt – and simply miss the point.

“The truth is that we have a generation of children who often prefer to interact in this way,” she said in relation to the above.

“There is a lack of nuance and body language,” said the superintendent.

In addition, teachers constantly ask students to “put their phones away,” says Talerico, who herself used to be a primary school teacher and principal.

Meanwhile, the district on Wednesday announced details of the new policies that will go into effect at all middle and high schools in the district.

Phones are not “confiscated” for the school day, she said. Not in the traditional, low-tech sense.

In fact, she stressed, they would remain in the students’ possession the entire time.

Students do not have access to it except for medical reasons – which we will discuss later.

Instead, phones are placed in a state-of-the-art magnetic pocket at the beginning of the school day that can only be opened by a teacher or administrator at the end of the school day.

Full details can be found online at the district at https://www.boe.mono.k12.wv.us/.

The bags in question were designed by the company Yondr, which was founded in San Francisco in 2014 at the height of the smartphone boom.

Mons district purchased the bags after a successful test last year for $150,000.

South Middle and Suncrest Middle were the pilot schools for the project, Talerico said.

Teachers at both schools reported that students were less distracted in class, the assistant principal said, and they also heard more genuine, legitimate “LOLs” – because students were simply more attentive.

“This is what we really wanted,” she said.

Talerico fully expects, she admitted with a giggle, that some students will try to exploit the system, for example by locking their old phone in their pocket and not using it because of the new upgrade they just purchased.

“We’re going to have all kinds of things like that,” she said, “but we’ll figure it out.”

Parents of children with special medical problems who rely on phone apps for monitoring do not need to worry about what to do, she said.

A student who is diabetic and uses a smartphone to record his blood sugar levels has access to it through a Velcro pocket.

“The kids have their phones with them all the time,” she said. “But they’re not distracted.”

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