Putnam County school principals report significant improvements in student engagement and campus culture after one school year of a district-wide ban on cellular devices.
Upperman High School Principal Justin Campbell said the policy has allowed students to communicate more effectively. Campbell said it provided providing teachers with more time for direct instruction without digital distractions.
“Teachers are seeing it, even our students are coming to us and saying, ‘You know, I’m kind of glad I don’t have that distraction.’ So it’s nice to hear from the students that they’re even glad that it’s not there, along with the teachers,” Campbell said. “And whenever I go in too, I see a lot of students paying more attention and just not having that extra distraction is big for us.”
Monterey High School Principal Bree Wheeler said the ban has forced students to develop essential communication skills that will be required in the workforce.
“I believe that our school culture and our school pride even, enhanced this year because they got into the activities that maybe we had set up in the gym during the cafeteria time or in the hallways,” Wheeler said. “Again, just because we didn’t withdraw into our phone, we had to be a part of our campus and present every day with our peers and our teachers.”
Wheeler said the policy has also encouraged students to memorize important personal information, such as social security numbers and parent phone numbers, rather than relying on a device. Wheeler said the school utilizes the ParentSquare app and social media to push out schedule changes to guardians faster than individual student texts could achieve.
Campbell said has been particularly valuable during 50-minute class periods where students must process a large amount of information.
As a former teacher, Campbell said the uniform, top-down approach across the district has eliminated the variability that previously existed when individual teachers set their own classroom policies. Campbell said this consistency helps students understand expectations and has improved teacher retention by making the job more enjoyable.
“I felt like I didn’t have as much stress on me to be able to control the classroom along with teach the content,” Campbell said. “So it’s just one thing off of the teachers’ plates that they don’t have to worry about as they’re instructing our students.”
Cookeville High School Principal Karen Trentham said the lack of phones has encouraged students to find new ways to interact, including a resurgence of physical activities and a reemergence of the iconic Hacky Sacks circle. Trentham said the policy has reduced the pressure students feel to constantly monitor social media during the school day.
“The teachers have just really reported everything being just a much more pleasant, positive experience without having to deal with that constant struggle of the phone,” Trentham said. “But they’ve even said that it just, it feels nicer in the building not having them.”
Trentham said the school manages parent communication by allowing families to call the main office to deliver messages to students. Trentham said while some students initially struggled with the attachment to their devices, most have complied with the board policy.
“It really just takes one- one, time to ensure that it’s locked and then it stays locked the rest of the day,” Wheeler said. “So it’s given them some time back and it’s given them to be able to focus on building relationships with their students and then diving right into their content.”
Administrators said they are also using monitoring software on school-issued Chromebooks to ensure students remain on task during digital learning. Campbell said teachers can view every student screen and remotely exit out of distracting websites to maintain focus on the curriculum.