Ask The Experts: Smartphones In Schools

In Pennsylvania and across the nation, educators, parents and policymakers are increasingly raising the alarm on the effects of smartphone use in schools on students’ academic performance and their mental and emotional health. 

This year’s state budget includes $100 million for the state’s School Safety & Mental Health grant program. And, for the first time, the program allows funding to go toward the purchase of lockable bags to store smartphones throughout the school day to reduce screen time among students as part of ongoing efforts to improve their mental health and academic outcomes. 

City & State recently spoke with stakeholders from across the educational spectrum, including: state Sen. Ryan Aument, the chief architect of the funding and legislative language in the state budget and a father of a 13-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter; Sabine Polak and Mileva Repasky, Phoenixville residents and co-founders of the national Phone-Free Schools Movement; and Jonathan Bauer, principal of Upper Merion High School and the Pennsylvania Principal Association’s state representative to the National Association of Secondary School Principals. 

These conversations have been edited for length and clarity.

What led you to get involved with this issue?

Sabine Polak: Both Mileva’s family and mine were greatly impacted by social media in general. My daughter had suffered from pretty severe mental health issues brought on by social media usage … We’re both in the Phoenixville Area School District, so we spent a lot of time at board meetings and meeting with the superintendent. At that point, the issues that were going on in our schools were becoming prevalent to us and we were really struck by the lack of willingness to make any changes despite the harms that were going on. And then we were also at the same time experiencing – at least for myself – those harms with my own daughter and those struggles with her academics and mental health due to a free-for-all in the school, in terms of phone usage. Both of us were in a position where we had taken the cell phones away from our children – and then we found that they were equally impacted during the school day by other children’s phone usage. That led to the realization that this is like a secondhand smoke effect and how unfair that is to everyone around them. 

Mileva Repasky: I was in the advocacy space and in the health world for about a decade. And it was such a natural shift to want to take this on with Sabina. As she said, we started advocating locally here just because of how horrific the experiences were that we had with our own children. And we quickly realized that we didn’t want to just try to change things for our kids. We saw that this is an epidemic, so we shifted focus to not only want to better our own children’s future, but to hopefully change the future for all the kids so that they can gain back that educational and social-emotional foundation. 

Jonathan Bauer: In my own school district, it’s a topic of discussion at every school level – elementary, middle and high school. At the national principals’ conference, there was just a session talking about cell phone legislation that’s happening across the country, new research on the social and emotional well-being of kids, and how that might be related to social media use. It’s definitely a national conversation. 

At Upper Merion High School, we’ve always tried to balance that at the high school level. Kids are going to have these things in their pockets eventually – so how can we make sure they are responsibly used? What we’ve come to figure out more and more is that there is a distraction factor. Cell phone addiction is a real thing. So far, we’ve had a lot of optional classroom management decision-making on how to either use cell phones as an instructional tool or to have it put away so it’s not in the way of instruction. We use cell phone caddies at the classroom level – their use is optional depending on the teacher – and I think the next level of discussion is: Do we need to have more uniform policies across the school?

Ryan Aument: I first really began thinking about this and talking about it in town hall events and public forums and with school district leaders last fall. I first began to think about it as a parent … Last fall, I met Dr. Jonathan Haidt, who wrote the book, “The Anxious Generation,” which just came out this spring. In fact, I bought a copy of the book for every member of the state Senate because the data is so compelling, the research that he has done is so compelling. Frankly, I think it resonates with folks because it confirms what we’re already seeing. It just provides the data for what we know to be true – that’s really when I began looking at what our options were, legislatively.

I expected to encounter resistance or concern over student safety, that a worst-case scenario, there’s an emergency at school – God forbid – a school shooting. Parents say, “I have to be able to contact my child, or a child has to be able to contact me.” What has surprised me has been the outpouring of support that we have received from both educators and parents. I’ve really not experienced anything like this on an issue that I’ve worked on in 14 years, where I was getting feedback off a co-sponsor memo – overwhelmingly positive responses off the co-sponsored memo, a ton of interest because this issue, again, is resonating with parents just like it did with me – they’re seeing the effects of cell phone use in their own kids. 

How can phone use negatively impact mental health and academic performance? 

MR: There is a decrease in academic performance, there is a decrease in attention span and teachers are having to spend longer to teach their curriculums and classes because kids’ attention is diverted to their phone usage. And on the social-emotional side of things, kids don’t even know how to talk to each other anymore. They don’t know how to problem-solve, they don’t know how to communicate – they don’t know how to develop those skills that are important not only in building friendships but also to being out in the world. 

Another aspect is increased cyberbullying, where kids use their phone as a tool to hurt. When they’re mad at their friend, instead of going up to their friend and saying, ‘I’m pissed that you did this,’ they blast to their friend group chats and on social media, doing everything they possibly can to be negative and derogatory in a situation. With all of those harms that we’re seeing, we see the polar opposite when phones are removed. 

SP: Another thing that I’ve heard from teachers a lot is just the lack of empathy that they’re seeing among their students, which is really concerning. If you’re in the Philadelphia area, you’ve probably seen the recent story about Great Valley School District (where a group of middle schoolers targeted their teachers on TikTok). That’s just another horrific example of the lack of empathy. These kids aren’t developing because they’re not having those face-to-face interactions. And teacher retention is really problematic right now because teachers are sick and tired of policing phones and the issues that come with it. Administrators are spending an enormous amount of time dealing with disciplinary issues, time that should be spent on other things in the school. There’s just a whole slew of issues that are stemming from phone use and they don’t stop when school stops. These are all issues that are carrying into adulthood and affecting the way these kids are functioning as adults. 

RA: I’m dealing with this issue as a parent in terms of, what devices do our kids have. They don’t have smartphones. They do have iPads – how much time do we allow them on those devices? What rules do we have in place around social media? Our rule is zero social media at this point. Interacting with their friends and the parents of their friends, I’m just very concerned about what I’m seeing in terms of the loss of focus, loss of attention span, kids who spend a lot of time looking and staring at screens, who are deeply unhappy, suffering from anxiety and depression – and I’m seeing that as a parent. 

Regarding the legislation and budget funding, I think there are a couple of benefits to this. One, I think the six-and-a-half-hour break during the school day is not insignificant. I think it absolutely is significant in terms of just giving kids that break and reducing some of the drama that occurs during the school day. Secondly, I think a six-and-a-half-hour break – a hard break – is critically helpful in terms of breaking a cycle of addiction. My wife, who’s a classroom teacher, talks about kids who, quite literally, they’re taking frequent restroom breaks to go check social media. She passed on what they’re doing and it’s because they can’t help themselves. They have to go see – has someone responded to an Instagram post, or a TikTok video or whatever it may be that they’re on. I think it’s critically important and extremely helpful in terms of breaking that cycle of addiction. 

Do you see a general consensus among teachers and administrators that there needs to be more limitations or restrictions on phone use?

SP: I think they’re all generally in favor of it, but teachers don’t want to be responsible for policing phones – and that’s where our movement comes into play. We really push for it being an all-day policy that takes responsibility off the teachers. It has to be enforced consistently across the school for it to work. That’s where we’re seeing a lot of these policies are lacking and not being successful because they’re leaving it up to individual teachers; it tends to work for a little bit and then fall off. 

MR: We always hear of somebody passing the buck. Teachers want phones to go away. There is a National Education Association poll that was done where more than 3,000 teachers were surveyed and 83% of them said they are fully supportive of an all-day phone ban, which is amazing. Teachers look to principals to kind of dictate what the school is going to do, their principals are looking to the superintendent, superintendents say they’re going to see if the school board puts a policy in place, and then the board says they don’t want parent pushback and want legislation to come out. Legislators say they’re trying to pass legislation but it can’t get across both the state House and Senate, so it’s everyone looking to the next person to fix it. That’s why we developed a toolkit that is hopefully going to take people from where they are now to being phone-free. We address all those questions, address parent pushback, and hope that we’re giving these educators, superintendents and principals the tools they need to make this happen without having to wait for someone else. 

JB: There’s definitely a classroom management piece that teachers have had to deal with in an increasing fashion. The journey in my school is that it was first just a classroom management issue that could be handled on a teacher-by-teacher basis. But I think we’re seeing that we’re beyond that now and we need to be thinking more about school-wide, district-wide and state-wide policies. 

RA: I was visiting schools this spring. The number of teachers who were coming up to me and saying, “You have no idea how big of an issue this is. This is the No. 1 classroom management issue that I deal with. Kids aren’t focused. They are distracted. The conflict that it causes between students, the bullying that takes place, the games that come up on TikTok that lead to the destruction of school property or videoing of what’s occurring in school” – it’s interesting because just the number of educators I’ve heard from just organically, or some parent groups that are really beginning to engage on this, about trying to reduce or eliminate access to social media before the age of 16, and delay when students are introduced to smartphones, there’s just been a ton of support.

What are the biggest obstacles to executing such a change in schools?

SP: The two things that we hear about are the safety issue – what happens in the event of an emergency – and that parents need to be in constant contact with their child. What we say is that it really harms the development of the child when we have parents that need to be in constant communication. We’d suggest utilizing the school’s office phone if you need to contact your child, and vice versa if a child needs to contact their parent. These are all things we used to do. It’s impacting the way kids develop independence and the constant parent contact during the school day is giving a lot of kids anxiety. Teachers are saying they haven’t finished handing back out test grades and parents are already contacting them. It’s facilitating this cycle of anxiety. 

MR: The other piece is when there is a danger in the school. One of the things we’ve heard is that constant contact in those situations is actually a detriment to our students – they shouldn’t be on their phones. There’s a negative impact on them because their teachers are trying to give them information on what they need to do to be safe. And in the unfortunate situation where there is an intruder in the school and students happen to be recording what’s going on, that intruder could be watching social media and be alerted to where they are. Ringing on a kid’s cell phone in a classroom could alert somebody to where they are and they could also be blocking cell phone signal for first responders during a crucial time. 

We’re parents – we get it. Sometimes, I would prefer my kids just be at home all the time because I love to have them here. But the reality is, we need to know school is a safe place. We need to put trust and faith back into the education system and know the people there are not there to harm our children; they’re doing their absolute best to keep them safe. So for those eight hours of the day, school is an extension of us. They’re going to keep them safe and do what they need to do and we, as parents, need to recognize that and untether ourselves from the need to be in contact with them 24/7. 

JB: Security is definitely a concern parents have and something that needs to be taken into account no matter how we regulate cell phones. I think there are ways around that. There are things from national experts that say having a cell phone in a kid’s pocket doesn’t necessarily make your student or that place safer. We obviously work with parents, so whatever cell phone policy comes down the road, students and parents have to be involved in that process. We’d also hope at the state level that principals have a voice in the process to make sure it’s the best legislation possible that meets the needs of all Pennsylvania schools.  

RA: It’s an incredibly emotional discussion, I know – but in a school shooting, a worst-case scenario, what you want in that situation is students who are paying attention, totally alert, totally focused on the instructions of an adult, who are staying quiet. What you don’t want is 500 kids trying to place a phone call at one time. It leads to a lot of chaos and confusion, texting and receiving instructions from outside the building, taking video, talking loudly. So there’s certainly a really strong argument made that smartphone-free schools are actually safer schools. Now, in the event that you do need a student to communicate outside the building: One, the devices can be unlocked very quickly, and two, all the examples of the lockable bags that I’ve seen can easily be cut open with scissors. So in a worst-case scenario, even without a lock, the phones would be accessible. As I explain this, most parents have been overwhelmingly supportive. 

What are your thoughts on the phone-free legislation?

SP: We have seen very few legislators do something as comprehensive as (Sen. Aument) has, so we’re very appreciative of that. Right now, we are trying to work with him to get our toolkit implemented as part of this change so that when schools accept these grants for lockable pouches, they have some guidance as well. 

JB: The Principals Association’s stance is just that we want to be at the table when legislation comes to implementation. We look to partner, to make it the best possible legislation that will have the impact people intended for it to have. 

RA: I’m pleased with this step that has been taken with the school code. As we were looking at our legislative options this spring, Senate Bill 1207 was introduced pretty late to get any consideration for this year’s budget. I think we introduced it in April or May and moved the legislation in June. We were sort of taking, frankly, a dual track. One was the language that was contained in Senate Bill 1207, which would have established a pilot program that was separately funded for school districts to purchase lockable bags and then to track data in terms of what the impact is on school academic performance, student mental health and school safety.

At the same time, we were also looking at the option that was ultimately included in the budget, which was ensuring that all school districts, not just those participating in a pilot, could utilize existing school safety and mental health funding to purchase lockable bags – that would be an eligible use of those dollars. 

The argument that I was making at the time, and certainly we continue to make today, is that we are making a significantly increased investment in K-12 schools and in mental health and school safety. There’s now $100 million in that fund. It seems to me that unless we begin to address some of these core issues, some of these core challenges impacting student physical health, student physical safety, student mental health and student academic performance, we’re really not going to move the needle or see improvement in schools. So I’m pleased this language is included. There’s no requirement, no mandate here. We’re going to continue to have the conversation around a pilot program or whether we need to have further restrictions in place statewide, have that conversation with school district leaders, but my hope is that many districts across the commonwealth will choose to utilize some of this funding they receive for this purpose.