Editor’s note: This article, originally published at 10:45 a.m. on Sept. 24, 2024, was updated at 3:48 p.m. on Sept. 24, 2024, to fix the spelling of Sarah Elbling Straus’s middle name.
High school teacher Sarah Elbling Straus was growing frustrated because it seemed her students couldn’t pay attention in class longer than 15 seconds before they needed to check their phones, which then caused them to lose track of the day’s lesson.
“It was just constantly, ‘Put your phone away, put your phone away, put your phone away,’” said Straus, a math teacher at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg. “They were always trying to look at their phone, and always thinking about when they would be able to look at their phone.”
So last year when her school offered Straus a hanging pouch system that students could use to store their phones during class, she jumped at the opportunity, Straus told MoCo360.
“I said I would use them because I had just hit my wit’s end,” Straus said recently. “I told [my students] I wasn’t going to play whack-a-mole getting them to put their phones away because it made me an ugly person.”
The change in her students’ performance in class after they started storing their phones was remarkable, Straus said.
“Their attention span got better. Their ability to complete a task improved,” Straus said. “It got to the point that we were getting so much more done in classes, I think it decreased their workload outside of class.”
As the school year gets underway, an increasing number of local educators such as Straus and school districts are finding ways to blunt the impact of student cell phone use in class. The movement reflects growing concern nationwide over how the devices, along with social media usage, are distracting students from learning and increasing mental health issues.
Brian Kramer, who teaches social studies at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, said dealing with cell phone distraction among students was his biggest struggle as a first-year teacher in the 2023-2024 school year.
“I can be the most engaging person in the world with the most charisma and experience, and I cannot compete against something that addictive,” Kramer said.
What’s the issue with cell phones in school?
According to a 2023 study conducted by Common Sense Media and researchers from the University of Michigan Medical School, 97% of student participants used their cell phones for a median of 43 minutes during the school day. Students picked up their phones a median number of 13 times a day, with social media, YouTube and gaming sites taking up the highest proportion of screen time during the school day.
In the spring of 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released an advisory that points to growing evidence that social media is causing harm to young people’s mental health. According to the advisory, research has shown that “adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes.”
And a study in the Journal for the Association of Consumer Research shows that even just the presence of cell phones can undercut learning — having a phone in the room negatively impacts cognitive resources such as working memory. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center study, one-third of public K-12 teachers said student distraction from using cell phones was a major issue.
Neuropsychologist Jen Reesman of Rockville, parent of a teen, said cell phone use almost always comes up with her patients who are in fifth grade and above.
“We’ve not done a great job of communicating about how challenging it can be to regulate oneself away from a phone, and how distracting it can be,” Reesman said. “The further we can get the phone away from the person the better we’re going to be able to bring their attention to the task at hand.”
Others note, however, that student use of cell phones and their participation in social media isn’t all bad. Social media can help foster positive connections with people who share common interests, according to Yale Medicine. And some experts at Harvard said allowing phones in school can enrich lessons and provide opportunities to teach technology literacy.
“The cell phone has completely transformed the way childhood happens, and I think that is just a reality we need to grapple with as parents and as educators,” said Matthew Gould, head of school at Norwood School, a Bethesda private school serving students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. “It’s not all bad, but it is something that we need to manage.”
MCPS restricts cell phone access
Across the country, public school systems are scrutinizing their cell phone policies and enforcement efforts. Some states, including Virginia, are taking steps to limit or ban cell phone use in public schools as a response to mental health issues and academic underachievement.
In Maryland, some districts and private schools have resorted to using a pouch system to lock away cell phones during the school day.
As of now, the official cell phone use policy of Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) hasn’t changed. According to MCPS regulations, elementary school students have the least amount of leeway when it comes to cell phone use while highschoolers have the most.
Elementary school students can only use phones before and after the school day. Middle schoolers can use them before and after the school day, and during instructional time if teachers allow. Cell phone use for middle schoolers during lunch time is up to a school’s principal.
High schoolers can use phones before and after school and during lunch, during instructional time if teachers allow, and between classes if principals allow. Under the policy, individual middle and high schools and even classrooms can have varying rules on what’s permitted.
According to the Pew Research Center survey, even if schools have cell phone policies in place as MCPS does, 30% of teachers who responded say the policies were very or somewhat difficult to enforce.
Kramer, the B-CC teacher, and other educators say enforcing MCPS cell phone policies often feels like a losing battle.
At the Aug. 20 county school board meeting, Stephanie Sheron, MCPS chief of strategic initiatives, said the district is evaluating implementation of its existing cell phone policy. Meanwhile, schools have the opportunity to participate in a program that is piloting a more restrictive cell phone environment. For those participating in the “Away All Day” pilot program, cell phones aren’t allowed to be used at all during instructional time.
“Central office is working with [the schools] to provide innovative ways to make sure they can implement this with fidelity because this is a complex issue, especially at the high school level,” Sheron told the board.
Eight middle schools and Rockville High School have signed up to participate in the pilot program, according to MCPS. Participating schools have agreed to some exceptions, allowing students to use or access their cell phone when it is needed for health reasons, such as monitoring insulin levels; as an accommodation or learning support in class; or a special circumstance such as with a teenage parent, according to MCPS. Principals have discretion on phone use outside of instructional time, such as during lunch.
Even without participating in the pilot, some schools are restricting phone access by more strictly enforcing current MCPS cell phone policy, Sheron told the school board.
The district is also cracking down on social media accessibility by no longer allowing high school students to access sites including Instagram, Facebook and Twitter on school Wi-Fi during the school day.
MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor said the school board has committed to dealing with the issue of cell phones in the classroom and is taking steps to curb use, such as with the pilot program.
“We have lots of different schools throughout the county that are trying different strategies, and that’s the right thing to do … to look at what might be a good fit for a systemwide approach to cell phones,” he told community members who attended a listening session Thursday night at Rockville High School.
But he noted that restrictions won’t solve all the problems resulting from students’ cell phone use.
“Even if we banned phones at school or restricted phone use at school, there’s like 16 other hours in the day where they have access to them. And I will tell you, as a former high school administrator — a principal — a lot of the stuff that happens on the phones happens outside schools and comes into school,” he told the group at Rockville High. “So before anyone jumps to conclusions like this is the silver bullet that’s going to solve everything, I promise you that this is not a panacea to solving all of our issues or concerns.”
Private schools crack down on use
Some local private schools in the county also are taking steps to curb cell phone usage.
Gould, the head of Norwood School, said the school is restricting all cell phone use during the day with the usage of Yondr pouches. A magnetic device in the small bags locks cell phones in and then can be unlocked at the end of the day. At the beginning of the school year, Norwood students are issued a Yondr pouch, which they keep for the rest of the year. Each school day, the students lock their cellphones into the pouches when they arrive and then unlock the pouches when they leave school.
“The policy in the past has been that students may put their cell phones in their backpacks or in their lockers to remain away throughout the course of the day,” he said. “It’s a subtle shift but an important one, because there’ll be no, ultimately, temptation or distraction because they simply won’t be able to access their cell phones during the school day.”
For Norwood, it was a research-based decision, Gould said. All Norwood administrators read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt and found it compelling.
“So much of our mission really is about the interpersonal relationship between a student and teacher, and that’s where we, of course, think the magic of our school lives,” Gould said. “We’re a people-oriented business, so there’s really no use for cell phones for the kids. Ultimately, it’s just a massive distraction.”
Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda is also restricting cell phone access this year. The Catholic girls school for grades one through 12 is utilizing Yondr pouches for its middle school students and Head of School Catherine Karrels said staff believes the system will help create healthy phone habits both inside and outside of school.
Georgetown Preparatory School, a Bethesda boys Catholic school serving students in ninth through 12th grade, is cracking down but in a different way. Dean of Students Chris Rodriguez said the school has always prohibited cell phones in the classroom and some teachers would collect them. But this year, freshman teachers are required to collect phones, and there are new “zones” where cell phone use is not allowed. Those areas include the learning center, dining hall and chapel.
Rodriguez said the school wanted to give the students an opportunity to abide by the new system before trying something more strict. So far, the students have been policing each other on cell phone use, Rodriguez said.
“Our motto, really this year, is ‘disconnect to connect,’ ” Rodriguez said. “These are times and memories that you create with your classmates, and it’s a time to kind of slow down. … We felt that that was really being disrupted and distracted with the phones.”
How have school communities reacted?
For Norwood, Gould said the feedback from parents has been “overwhelmingly positive.”
“I think parents really appreciate the school taking a stand and also making a research-based decision,” he said.
Some parents such as Reesman, the neuropsychologist whose daughter attends the private Brookewood School in Kensington, are ready to see more schools restricting cell phone use. Reesman said she was excited to hear that her daughter’s school is adopting a more strict approach regarding the devices.
Not all parents support restrictions. Angela Rojas is the parent of three students who last year attended the Montgomery Virtual Academy, the MCPS online school that closed in June, and now attend school in person. She said she is concerned about not being able to reach her children in case there is an emergency.
Rojas said making widespread rules banning cellphones would be unfair and schools should consider confiscating phones used in class instead of banning their use.
“If our daughter has an emergency, it will be easier for her just to send me a text and I will pick her up,” Rojas said.
Students also have differing opinions. While only one MCPS high school has officially signed up for the pilot program, other schools have been enforcing current MCPS policy with a heavier hand.
Xin Ye Michelle Liu, a student at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, said the restrictions have been helpful with managing distractions.
“Overall, it seems that most of my classmates welcome the new policy as they feel it helps them stay focused in class,” Liu said. “Some believe the [enforcement] restricts their freedom while others feel that access to smartphones during class is essential because the [school-provided] Chromebooks … block frequently used websites for their study.”
For all schools considering new policies or pilots, Liu said MCPS needs to explain the rules to students, as well as provide accommodations for students who use their phones to monitor health issues.
“The use of a smartphone can’t be directly restricted,” Liu said. “Students [need to] feel more comfortable approaching these policies and developing better habits.”
Albert Einstein High School in Kensington is another MCPS school that is more strictly enforcing current MCPS policy this year, according to Principal Mark Brown. On the first day of classes last month, some students told MoCo360 they wouldn’t mind putting their phones away as long as they were able to use them during free periods.
Although B-CC High isn’t participating in the district’s pilot program, Kramer said he’s noticed a change in tone concerning cell phone use in school.
“We’re basically adopting the idea of, like, phone use is a problem, [and] we need to take a strict stance on it and then address whatever comes up,” Kramer said. “It’s been framed as we all need to [do] this because if one teacher [doesn’t], it makes … it a lot harder” for the others.
Straus, the Quince Orchard High teacher, said the MCPS pilot program is a good step forward.
She said that having students store their phones during class was the “single best decision” of her teaching career — and one that her students eventually embraced. It’s a step she thinks all schools should take.
“It made me a nicer person. I wasn’t yelling at kids to put their phones away,” Straus said. “We need to create an environment that is conducive to learning, and when they’ve got that smart phone in their hoodie pocket, it’s not an environment where they can learn.”
