With the start of the school year, Charlottesville City middle and high school students are adjusting not only to new classes, but to a new cell phone policy too. Students must have their phones “Off and Away the Entire Day”—something previously only applicable to CCS elementary students—and will eventually be required to seal phones in magnetically locked pouches. While many parents support stricter cell phone policies, the new rule has also raised concern.
Students are now required to put their phones and other personal devices away for the entirety of the school day, including non-instructional periods like lunch. Though teachers continue to remind students to do this, CCS policy dictates that upon a student’s first violation, administration will be notified, the device confiscated, and it will be returned to the student at the end of the day.
In an infographic detailing the policy, the district outlined potential benefits of Off and Away the Entire Day. “Disconnecting from phones will allow us to connect with each other, connect with learning, and connect with calm,” CCS wrote. “Let’s all work together to improve our learning relationships and mental wellness.”
Later this school year, CCS plans to move to “Off, Yondr, and Away,” which would require students to lock their phones in Yondr pouches at the beginning of the day. Several parents and guardians have expressed concern about this because it would make contacting students in an emergency difficult.
In an August 18 letter to the CCS community, Superintendent Royal Gurley said the district would take time to get feedback, conduct more research, answer questions, and make adjustments before implementing the use of Yondr pouches. He also mentioned meetings about the new device policy, which were held before the start of the school year.
“We held those meetings … because we wanted to alleviate any confusion that we will be launching Yondr on day one, and we wanted to answer questions about Off and Away the Entire Day,” says CCS Community Relations Liaison Amanda Korman.
“I think we are still really wanting to make sure we know that it is going to work because our students and families have buy-in and understand the value of the program,” says CCS Supervisor of Community Relations Beth Cheuk. “And that may take a while because people have legitimate questions. And we want to work and do some research and find out how Yondr has worked at other school divisions.”
Though the district does not currently have any additional meetings scheduled to discuss Yondr, Korman encourages families to reach out with questions. “As we are able to get answers to families’ questions and get that buy-in, that’s when we [implement] Yondr,” she says.
While it is still early in the school year, both Korman and Cheuk claim the new policy has already been successful. “We’re just getting some reports that teachers are super happy,” says Cheuk. “[There have been] few discipline reports over phones, just a handful, and the parents have been very supportive of them.”
When asked why the district will implement Yondr pouches despite the claimed success of Off and Away, Cheuk and Korman say the pouches will help students tempted to use their phones regardless of the rules. “At one of the last school board meetings, we heard the story of this student who confessed that even with some of her favorite classes, she would sometimes slip out under the guise of needing to use the restroom … so she could check her phone to stay [caught up] with whatever drama her friend group was up to,” says Korman. “And for a student like that, we hope that she knows that by having the phone in the pouch, that temptation is off the table.”
CCS has already ordered the Yondr pouches. However, the district says it is listening to families’ feedback. If there’s a need to contact students during the day, CCS recommends either emailing the student or calling the front office.
“For the bigger category of those more emergent situations, I think the thing we can do is to turn to other school divisions,” says Cheuk. “We’ve identified at least one in Virginia, but also some nationally … [that] have had lockdowns … [and] emergency situations. I would like to learn from those school divisions and from parents in those school divisions. How did they navigate this world? And what can they say that would make our parents feel better about the situation and understand that they have a good option?”
Albemarle County Public Schools does not currently plan to alter its cell phone policy. According to Public Affairs and Strategic Communications Officer Phil Giaramita, “We prohibited the use of cell phones prior to the 2019-2020 school year in our middle schools, with the intent that the policy would be tested and considered for extension to high schools. High schools limited cell phone use three years later, coming out of the pandemic. Both changes have worked very well and there is no intent right now to make any changes.”