CHRISTIANSBURG — Students at Christiansburg Middle School were told a month ago to give up their cellphones and other electronic devices during school hours – and seem happier without them, said a report presented Tuesday to the Montgomery County School Board.
There also have been numerous phones confiscated after students used them despite the ban, the report said.
“I’m seeing smiles on faces instead of the cellphone zombies walking down the hallways and not paying attention to what’s going on around them,” Christiansburg Middle School Principal Danny Knott told school board members.
Students are “learning they can do things without their cellphones,” Knott added.
What school officials called the “new policy” took effect March 5 as an attempt to counter disruptions caused by students using phones and devices to text, listen to music and use social media during classes and at other times. The policy banned use or display of phones and other devices during school hours except for academic use under the supervision of a teacher.
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Smart watches and wired or wireless headphones are included in the ban.
“The expectation is that they are ‘off and away’ in all areas of the building … Such devices will be considered to be ‘in use,’ and will be confiscated and turned into the office if they are on (silent or audible), sending or receiving a call or text message, including swiping or tapping smart watches, or being used to take, display, or send photos/videos, etc.,” said a letter that Knott sent home to parents on Feb. 27.
Confiscated phones were kept at the office until the end of the school day. After a first offense, students could pick up their phones. But after second or subsequent offenses, parents had to reclaim the phones.
After three offenses, students are assigned to a Saturday school session.
A report presented to the school board Tuesday said that there have been an average of 16 phone confiscations per day between March 5 and March 27, with the most confiscations, 45, coming on the policy’s first day, and the least, 5, on March 27.
There was just one confiscation Tuesday, Knott told school board members.
Christiansburg Middle School has 763 students, according to school figures.
The report said that without phones, the school is noisier during lunches and between classes, and that students have more face-to-face interactions and are participating more in classrooms.
“Students seem happier!” said a slide shown during the report.
It is too soon to say how the cellphone ban might affect academics, the report said, but school officials are hoping for improvement.
The no-phones policy was created by a committee that met between October and January, and reviewed how cellphones were handled in other school districts and research on the effects of phones on students, Knott said. The new policy’s rollout was accompanied with a pair of humorous videos aimed at students – an “it is coming” video that leaned heavily on “2001: A Space Odyssey” and a follow-up that explained the new rule.
The school, like the rest of the school division, already had a cellphone policy but it was overly complicated, officials said. The policy has not been consistently enforced, Superintendent Bernard Bragen said Tuesday.
Christiansburg Middle School has a phone in the guidance office that students can use to call parents if they need to during the school day. To prevent students from having to check their phones for possible changes to practices, games and other afterschool activities, the school has an announcement at the start of seventh period that covers this, Knott said.
Knott said that student cellphone use can bring up issues beyond classroom disruption. The school sent information home to parents outlining possible criminal charges – for juveniles and adults – that can result from students trading nude or sexually explicit pictures of one another, he said.
School board members said they hoped that Christiansburg Middle School can be a model for other schools in the county and beyond.
“Everybody needs to do what you’re doing,” school board member Jamie Bond said.