Schools across the country are dealing with the distractions caused by smartphones in the classroom. The Cedar Rapids Community School District (CRCSD) voted on a “phones away” policy designed to minimize distractions and cooperate with recent Iowa legislation.
Iowa’s state governor Kim Reynolds passed a law stating that schools must adopt policies regarding electronic devices, however, she did not state a specific rule. Schools were able to create a policy. CRCSD chose to enforce a no phone policy from 7:50 am – 2:50 pm for middle and high schools, and 8:50 am – 3:50 pm for elementary schools.
“I hate it because we don’t get a chance to be able to control our own responsibilities in a place somewhat like a work environment,” senior Kayla Langerman said. “It’s also bad for Kirkwood students, because I cannot access my personal email from this computer and that is what our Kirkwood accounts are connected to.”
District leaders say the change is driven by a wish to create safe, focused learning environments while aligning with the recent state law, Iowa Code 279.87. The proposal comes after meetings with families, teachers and administrators. According to the district, a majority supported a “phones away” approach for the entire school day, emphasizing the need for fairness and consistency across all schools.
“I think completely banning them is outrageous,” sophomore Ryan Steenburg said. “There are many times where I use my phone to look up a quick fact or statistic and it doesn’t at all take away from my learning, in fact it helps.”
Parents and students wonder how they will contact one another in emergency situations. However the school is making exceptions around certain health difficulties allowing some students, with medical documentation, to check their phones throughout the day. Other students are now dependent on email to contact family members.
“I used to text my mom all the time,” Langerman said. “Now I cannot contact her throughout the day at all. She isn’t going to be looking at her email all day.”
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 74% of US adults support banning cellphones in the classroom. However, even outside of the classrooms students are still being held to the “phone away” policy, having their phones banned during passing times as well as lunch. Many students find that the ban being enforced outside of the classroom is unfair.
“I think that phones are definitely a distraction at school, but banning them completely is too much,” junior, Brendon Long said. “Putting a restriction on them and still allowing us to use them during passing time and lunch would be way better.”
Even with the new policy in place there is still a lot of growth that students as well as teachers have to undertake.
“I have only had a few problems with phones, especially in the bathrooms, the long lines get a lot. I think the halls are good, but I think lunch is interesting. I think we could look at maybe opening up lunch for the phones,” Kennedy math teacher Jennifer McAtee said. “In life you gotta learn how to work with technology. But on the flip side I see that if we are not using phones at lunch there is more conversation at lunch. It’s a hard balance.”
Kennedy teachers responded to a survey regarding the phone policy after the first week of classes. It found that 62.7% voted a five, showing support for the policy, while 3.6% voted in the three range.
“I think it’s really good. I think that we probably have to tweak a few things because it’s a brand new law,” McAtee said. “I collected phones last year but I still had problems with earbuds and watches, and I now don’t have those problems.”
Students are no longer able to sit on their phones or listen to music instead of instruction and this has created a stronger learning environment within the classroom.
“The student interaction is so much higher, like during a break there is actual conversation going.” McAtee said.
