Coronado Middle School students will have no access to their cellphones during the school day next year. The Coronado School District board approved the new policy on Thursday after more than a year of discussion among district leaders, staff and parents.
Currently, Coronado Middle School students can use their phones during recess and lunch. Next school year, students will have to put their phones, smartwatches and other devices in a lockable bag for the entire school day.
“The middle school is ready for a significant shift,” said Superintendent Karl Mueller.
At last month’s school board meeting, Coronado Middle School Principal Brooke Falar said students’ phone use during breaks is a problem.
“I kind of envisioned, ‘Oh, I'm going to text mom,' right?” she told the board in March. “It's not just texting mom. It's social media. It is breaking rules such as no videoing, no being on social media.”
Some board members wanted the “bell-to-bell” ban to apply to both the middle and high school.
Dr. Scot Youngblood said not having access to devices could improve students’ mental health. He pointed to a recent court case that found that Meta and Google designed social media apps like Instagram and YouTube to be addictive.
“Many people look at a cellphone, or some people do, and they say, ‘Well, it's a communication device and it's a way to stay in contact to get information.’ But social media companies look at this as a drug delivery device,” he said. “And the drug is actually in your brain. It’s called dopamine.”
At past board meetings, students have said a ban at the high school would go against the district's goals for its graduates, which include the responsible use of technology.
Youngblood responded to that concern on Thursday.
“Perhaps one of the ways by which we could actually instill the appropriate use is to kind of ensure that, at least for 7.5 hours or whatever it might be until they go off campus, that they might actually have a time when they're awake, alert, and they don't actually have the access that we're talking about,” he said.
District leaders said enforcement at the high school could be a challenge. Students’ schedules vary depending on their classes and they can go off campus for lunch.
Another consideration was cost. Pouches for the middle school would cost about $25,000. If the district bought them for both campuses, the price would go up to more than $76,000.
“Going all in is money that you can't unspend,” said board president Renee Cavanaugh.
Mueller said the pilot program at the middle school can help inform a future decision about the high school.
“If we go through a year of a pilot phase at (Coronado Middle School) and we find in the data, students have been responsive to this shift, staff have been responsive to this shift, and the board decides to roll this up into our high school, we have a quarter of the student body who have already lived and experienced a year of these pouches,” he said.
He said the pouches are a first step in examining the role technology plays at the district’s schools.
