Once the cell phones were put up, students started learning again. That was the lesson handed out Monday, Aug. 5 from a number of teachers and administrators from across Virginia. Monday morning marked the first virtual ‘listening session’ for Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new project, calling for school districts to work toward a ‘cell phone-free education’.

But it’s not as simple as take away the phones and you’ll get a better classroom experience. Districts across the state have had a variety of experiences with different cell phone policies, ranging from complete bans to limited access. That last option is what’s currently being used here in Charlotte County. 

Monday’s meeting, however, mainly included people either highlighting the need for a shift or detailing the impacts a complete ban has brought. 

“When they had to put their cell phones in the box, it changed the environment in the classroom,” said Henrico County teacher Heather Demascio. “They had to talk to each other, learn names, make friends and socialize with each other. There wasn’t the frustration of having to tell the student to put their phone away. I can tell you it was so frustrating to have to deal with that.” 

Also, Demascio said, it cut down on fighting and overall disciplinary incidents, as students were no longer going back and forth throughout the day, messaging or making videos on SnapChat, Tik Tok or Instagram until a disagreement blew up into something worse. 

“When people fight, it’s all on SnapChat and Instagram,” Demascio said. “Snapchat causes many fights throughout the day because they’re communicating all the time.”

That was echoed by a number of teachers and staff. Once you take the ability to broadcast away, you eliminate their audience. Once the audience goes away, suddenly a bunch of the students no longer feel the need to fight. That’s not saying all fights stop, teachers were quick to point out, but the number dramatically drops. 

A bit of a contradiction 

The challenge, other school officials and parents pointed out, is that it’s not a one-size-fits-all type of situation. There are times when students need to have cell phones. While some folks might just be used to using phones for texting or calling, there are apps that can work with other technology and monitor a student’s health or give reminders when it’s time to take needed medicine. And yes, Crystal Beauvais acknowledged, prior to cell phones, this would be up to the teacher, or a nurse or school administrators. 

“Having experienced several delays through the years with my five kids, that’s not always the best course of action either,” Beauvais said on Monday. She pointed out that in some districts, at times there haven’t been nurses on staff. Also, teachers can forget to remind students. Dr. Lisa Coons, Virginia’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, said in response that she and her staff are working with healthcare officials to come up with a solution to that. It was also brought up in response by some teachers that just giving kids an exemption for health reasons wouldn’t work. You would either create a situation where other students get jealous, because one person can have a phone out and they can’t or suddenly a number of students start claiming they too need to be reminded to take medication. 

“We are working with our school leaders and a number of contacts across the state, superintendents, principals, to talk about how to manage these family contacts around appointments,” Coons said. 

And beyond the health issue, Beauvais pointed out, is the idea that you’re going to ban cell phones to stop students from messaging, and yet the majority of classes have those same kids working on laptop computers which also have messaging functions, often built-in to the apps they have to use for class. 

What’s the policy in Charlotte? 

Now as we mentioned earlier, some school districts have already adapted different types of policies involving cell phones. Charlotte County Public Schools is one. In Charlotte, there’s a three-tiered system. 

Elementary students are not allowed to have cell phones at school. Middle schoolers can bring their phones, but they have to keep them turned off and out of sight all day. Randolph-Henry High students, meanwhile, can bring phones, but can’t have them out in class unless the teacher is directing an activity that calls for the phone to be used. In multiple classes, high school teachers in Charlotte have students use apps on their phones to work on class projects. Other than that, “our high school students are only allowed to have cell phones out between classes, before and after school and during lunch,” said Charlotte County Superintendent Robbie Mason. “This policy works well for us as our high school students can use their phones, but not during instructional time, which is what we’re trying to project.” 

And it’s a method that seems to work well for Charlotte, as every school in the district was fully accredited this year. Also, when it comes to overall Standards of Learning test scores, Charlotte County excelled there too. The district ranked 18th in Virginia, beating out dozens of larger groups. 

Still, Mason said they’ll take the guidance from the Virginia Department of Education and work with the school board to make any required adjustments to the policy. He hopes, however, that the state lets districts make up their own minds. 

“I hope that the VDOE continues to allow this to be a local decision,” Mason said. 

Issues with ‘cell phone-free’ funding

And then there’s the big question. How are smaller, rural districts supposed to fund this concept? And what would it look like? Will the state pay for an extra member of staff, to check if students have phones? Or will the state fund a resource officer for every district, to meet students at the door and collect phones? 

Susan Kimbrough from the Prince Edward County School Board brought up the issue of money on Monday. Calling in to the virtual meeting, Kimbrough asked if there would be funding for this project. And the answer from Dr. Coons was yes, but only up to a point. A total of $500,000 is set aside to support implementing the new policies. That’s $500,000 to be split across all 100+ school districts in Virginia.

There is also currently no set cap on how much a school district can request from that pool of money. That means the money will be offered on a first come, first serve basis. And if you’re not one of the first districts to submit a request, chances are you’ll be out of luck. 

What’s next for ‘cell phone-free’ plan?

As we mentioned earlier, this was the first in a series of listening sessions planned for the next month. We say planned, but there are no set dates for the remaining sessions. Coons said on Monday she hopes to have a rough idea of the recommendations put together by mid-September, giving school districts three months to design their own plan. 

Under the governor’s order, all school districts must adapt the recommendations and design their own cell phone-free education plan by Jan. 1, 2025, to be put into effect for the Fall 2025 school semester.