Brooke Falar, Principal at Coronado Middle School, said she was “a little worried” about implementing the new cell phone ban at CMS. But five weeks into the start of the school year, she said it’s a big success.
“I am very excited to report that this has been wonderful,” said Falar at the September 10th school board meeting. “Thank you for your initiative and support as we pilot this program.”
She said CMS started rolling out the program in July, sending letters to families, informing them of the new policy. The letter was sent out several times prior to the start of school. Falar said the day before school started, the students picked up their pouches — which use magnets to lock each student’s cell phone in the bag for the duration of the school day.
“So far, the students have been able to follow the rules amazingly well,” said Falar. “But no matter what rules we have, there are always going to be students who break them.”
For the first infraction, the student must turn their phone in to administration for the duration of class time for five school days. They also get a detention. For the second offense, the parents must pick up the student’s device from school. Then the child gets another detention and is required to turn the phone into administrators for 20 school days. For the third infraction, the student gets a detention and must turn in the phone each school day for the remainder of the semester, or 20 days — whichever is longer.
“I’m really excited to announce that after five weeks of school, we’ve only had nine first offenses,” said Falar.
She shared that teachers were surveyed on the results of the new cell phone policy, and all 36 who were surveyed said the policy was effective. Teachers are reporting back that there is more student engagement at lunch, less distractions in class and kids are happier overall.
One teacher said that students are getting to know each other on a deeper level, and another said “It’s awesome to see students talking to eachother and playing during lunch” instead of zoning out on their phones.
In addition, the school has started banning computers for the first 20 minutes of lunch, so the students are completely device-free.
“They’re playing card games at lunch, there is a game of UNO, there are volleyball circles all over the place,” said Falar. “So it’s just been really great for the students and for the culture of CMS.”
Trustee Mal Sandie congratulated Falar on taking the lead in successfully implementing the new policy. He said he was there for the first day of school, and witnessed an organized roll-out. He said there was no push-back from the kids, and they were very respectful.
Falar said that next steps could include routine pouch-checks, and also a system for determining a course of action if a student leaves their phone at home. But overall, she’s seeing less anxiety and a more “positive vibe” from students when they are on campus.
“This went even better than I could have planned,” said Falar. “I’m just so excited about how smooth this has been.”
