Schools Lock Up Cellphones to Keep Students Focused
High-school history teacher Tambi Lewis rarely goes more than a few minutes during classes without stopping to say to a student, “Put your phone away." Clark County School District in Las Vegas, where she works, prohibits phone use during class, but she said students know enforcement beyond a call home is rare. So all day she catches students scrolling social media, texting each other and watching YouTube videos when they should be completing assignments in their U.S. and world history classes, which are required for graduation.
Lewis’s school will soon participate in a pilot program requiring that cellphones be stowed during class in nonlocking pouches that block cell signals. Clark County, the country’s fifth-largest district, will require all students in sixth through 12th grades to keep phones in the pouches starting next fall. “We have to do something," Lewis said.
“There’s no learning going on because of the phones." The decision to disable or lock up phones, while still far from the norm, is taking hold in thousands of schools across the U.S.—a sign of growing concern among policymakers and educators. Many states have proposed or enacted new school cellphone restrictions, and a bill in Congress would study the effects of phones in schools. Many teachers say phones have become an in-class distraction, but phone bans might face pushback from parents accustomed to regular contact with their children.
A 2023 study by nonprofit Common Sense Media found that students receive a median of 237 phone notifications a day, a quarter of them during school. The U.S. Surgeon General warned last year that social media can have detrimental effects on youth mental health.
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