North Country Schools are Adopting Cell Phone Bans

By Amy Feiereisel. NCPR Community Engagement Reporter.

North Country schools are adopting cell phone bans. Why is that, and how do they work?

Cell phones bans in schools are a hot topic right now, and they’re picking up steam.

Here in the North Country, in mid-August, the Lake Placid Central School District passed a ‘cell phone ban’ in their high school. It joins several other districts that have made a switch to a ‘phone free campus.’

Lake Placid take cues from students

Before much of the state and national chatter began around cell phone bans, Lake Placid Superintendent Tim Seymour says the school board was talking about one in its 600 student district.

And he says they were primarily inspired by their students. “In many ways, this level of concern about the use of cell phones - the pervasiveness of them and their capabilities to cause harm - all of that in part was borne by student testimonials,” said Seymour.

For the last two years, Lake Placid has sent the district’s high school juniors and seniors on the ‘Woods Program.’ Seymour says it’s basically a four day, off grid camping trip in the Adirondacks.

He said both years the students “came back and reported to the board about their trips. You would think it would be about, you know, an appreciation for nature,” said Seymour. “But a lot of their comments were relegated to recognizing that not having that albatross of social media around their neck was liberating.”

On Tuesday, August 13, the school board voted to expand its cell phone ban to the high school for the upcoming school year.

Like the vast majority of districts, phones were already banned in the elementary and middle school.

Now, all students will be expected to stow their phones in their lockers during the school day.

Lake Placid joins a handful of other districts in the region with similar policies, including Malone, Saranac Lake, Morristown, Lisbon, and Sackets Harbor.

Sackets Harbor takes cue from teachers

Also starting this September, “Sackets Harbor Central School District will be transitioning to a cell phone free school campus,” said District Superintendent Jennifer Gaffney.

The school has used a zone system in the past, with cell phones allowed it some places. “The lunch room was a Green Zone. The library typically was a Green Zone. Classrooms were yellow zones, so it was teacher discretion,” explained Gaffney.

The trouble with the zone system, she said, is that with different expectations in different places, teachers had to police phone use a lot. So she said the school administrators have been thinking about removing phones from their high school grades for a couple years.

She said why the school is making the switch now came from a day this spring, when faculty got together to talk about social and emotional and teaching challenges. Gaffney said as they discussed challenges, phone use came up again, and again, and again. Finally, she said a teacher suggested they officially ban phones.

“And at that moment that that was shared, the entire gym erupted in clapping and and applause for that recommendation,” said Gaffney. “So I think that was really [saying] for me, ‘We’re ready. We’re ready. This is needed. The faculty and staff are loud and clear. They need this to do their jobs.’”

So this summer the district revised its school’s code of conduct to create a ‘cell phone free campus.’ Gaffney said she’s heard a little public feedback, and that it’s been mostly supportive.

But says she expects there to be an adjustment period this fall. “You know, although it’s going to be difficult for sure for students, especially in the beginning, I think collectively we recognize that it’s in the best interest of our entire school community.”

A bigger idea

This is an idea that’s picking up momentum across the nation.

The Los Angeles Unified District, the second largest school district in the country, voted in June to enact a cell phone ban. New York City, the nation’s largest school system, says it will implement a ban sometime this coming school year.

Right now, four states - Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Ohio - have passed legislation to ban cell phones in class. Several others have introduced similar legislation.

Governor Kathy Hochul is currently on ‘a listening tour’ about smartphones around New York. She’s said she plans to propose a statewide school cell phone policy.

Pushback on cell phone bans

According to a Pew Research Poll, 70% of high school teachers say smartphones are a major distraction in the classroom.

But Frank Brunner isn’t one of those teachers. “I think that the current attitude toward cell phones that is sweeping our nation has all the hallmarks of a classic moral panic,” Brunner said.

Brunner is a teacher in Lake Placid. He compared cell phone bans to educational fads like ‘new math’ in the 1960s, ‘whole language reading’ in the 1990s, and the more recent idea of ‘learning styles’ in the 2000s. All of these have been disproven as valuable teaching methods.

“So these ‘neuromyths’ are out there for some reason. The field of education is extremely susceptible to them, and I’m very concerned that the same thing is happening again with cell phones,” said Brunner.

Brunner says while a cell phone ban would probably help some kids and make teachers’ lives easier, he fears that removing cell phones will hurt two student populations that rely on them.

He says the first are gifted students, who often get less attention than those struggling with a subject. “But the way that gifted students, a lot of them, have been able to make up the gap is by having their own personal tutor,” said Brunner. “And that’s their phone.”

The other population he’s concerned about are less social kids.

“People talk about how phones aren’t allowing kids to be social; the opposite is true,” said Brunner. “There are plenty of kids who the only contact they have with friends is through a cell phone, because their friends are in other schools. People find communities online these days and they need access to talk to those communities, I think, during the day.”

Brunner is also wary of taking such a big step without plentiful science and data proving a link between social media and mental health problems in children.

There haven’t been that many studies conducted on the subject, and findings have been mixed and hotly debated.

Earlier this year, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published The Anxious Generation, which argues that smartphones are “rewiring childhood” and causing mental health issues in children. Pyschologist Candace Odgers then published a harsh review of the book in Nature, asserting that many of Haidt’s claims are not validated by research.

And a recent a global review of cell phone bans published by Australian researchers in March was somewhat inconclusive and found weak evidence of benefits from cell phone bans.

A year of no cell phones in Malone

But many school administrators and staff say they can see the negative impacts cell phones are having in schools, and cell phone bans have been rapidly gaining in popularity, as many districts feel they can’t wait to make a change.

Malone Central School District instituted its cell phone ban in 2023.

Superintendent Brandon Pelkey says they did so hoping to see a decrease in bullying and fighting in school, which he says had gotten worse in the last few years.

“Especially during the pandemic, we noticed that there seemed to be a lot more chatter on social media,” said Pelkey. “They [students] were sending messages to a group to meet in the bathroom to get into a fight. And then they would record it and they would post on social media.”

Pelkey said “it created a a subculture that was very toxic,” and that it was weighing heavily on staff, and on students, even though the majority weren’t involved. “We saw a lot of students being impacted by this. And one of the things we talked a lot about during the pandemic was social and emotional well-being and how do we help students?”

Pelkey though a cell phone ban could be the answer.

Malone’s rule is similar to Lake Placid and Sackets Harbor; cell phones must be stowed in lockers during the school day. If students bring phones to class, teachers will confiscate them until the end of the day, and parents have to come and pick them up.

Since instituting it in the fall of 2023, Pelkey says their disciplinary incidents have decreased. And he says there are other impacts, too.

“Teachers started to say kids are more engaged, kids are talking more, and we’re seeing less disruption,” said Pelkey.

Pelkey says they had support for the ban, but also saw a lot of pushback from parents and students. Main concerns were safety and the ability for families to be connected.

But Pelkey says the locker method does allow students to quickly check their phones during passing periods, so while it’s not an outright ban (like some districts are doing with special phone pouches; Cambridge Central School District in Washington County will use those pouches in their cell phone ban starting this fall), it limits phone use to a very small chunk of the school day.

He says it’s working for them, and he’s seen that firsthand walking through the hallways of schools. “Walking between periods students were actually talking to me, talking to each other, talking to the teacher,” said Pelkey.

He said kids do still check their phones, but it’s less intrusive. “When they got to their locker, they would check it to see if there was anything pressing, but just seemed as though there was there was this shift that had taken place.”