Zach Mangino, a rising senior at Wilton High School in Connecticut, spent most of the last school year undistracted by text alerts and TikTok videos, thanks to the town\u2019s Board of Education decision to ban high school students from accessing their smartphones from \u201cbell to bell.\u201d<\/p>\n
While plenty of his classmates weren\u2019t thrilled with the district\u2019s $80,000 investment<\/a> in lockable device pouches made by Yondr, a US company, Mangino wasn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore the ban, you\u2019d see people standing against the walls like zombies. They\u2019d be a foot away from each other and wouldn\u2019t say a word,\u201d Zach, 17, told The Post. \u201cIt made such a big difference walking around school and seeing kids smiling and having genuine conversations instead of looking down at their phones or scrolling Instagram.\u201d <\/p>\n Zach Mangino, 17, a senior at Wilton High School, with his mother, Sue. Zach told The Post that going phone-free last school year \u201cmade such a big difference\u201d in how students interacted with others. Matthew McDermott<\/p>\n While Connecticut has no statewide mandate to ban smartphones, tablets and smartwatches at every public school, New York now does<\/a>, with legislation announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May, which calls for all \u201cpersonal internet-enabled electronic devices\u201d to be turned off and stowed away<\/a> for the duration of the school day.<\/p>\n The impetus for the legislation is \u201cMore Learning, Less Scrolling: Creating Distraction-Free Schools<\/a>,\u201d a report based on Hochul\u2019s statewide listening tour, which highlights one stark fact: American teenagers get pinged with an average of 250 notifications daily, which adversely affects attention spans and learning outcomes.<\/p>\n And with the first morning bell ringing very soon \u2014 NYC public schools open Sept. 4<\/a> \u2014 officials statewide are busy figuring out how to implement the ban since the way these devices are stored is up to each principal.<\/p>\n While the law doesn\u2019t stipulate how to do this \u2014 phones can be placed in lockers, cubbies or lockable pouches, such as the ones from Yondr \u2014 the deadline for the specific plan is Friday, Aug. 8, and the $25 million needed for this (or $35 per student for lockable pouches) hasn\u2019t been distributed to schools, according to Chalkbeat<\/a>.<\/p>\n Zach shows his smartphone, which he went without from \u201cbell to bell\u201d last year. Matthew McDermott<\/p>\n Danielle Lewis, whose daughter Logan, 15, attends a no-phones-allowed city charter school \u2014 one-third<\/a> of New York City\u2019s public secondary schools are already unplugged, according to Yondr \u2014 appreciates the policy, but says it took some getting used to.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to have the ability to reach my daughter during the school day,\u201d Lewis, who lives in Harlem and works in nonprofit communications, told The Post. \u201cAt the same time, I understand that phones are distractions, period. It\u2019s tricky to get kids to stop looking at TikTok under their desks.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand the reasons why phones shouldn\u2019t be in schools, but it\u2019s still nuanced.\u201d<\/p>\n Yondr pouches are being used to promote \u201cbell-to-bell\u201d bans in school districts nationwide. Yondr<\/p>\n New York City public schools are instituting their policy regarding personal electronic devices this school year. @nycschools\/instagram<\/p>\n Legislation banning device use in schools isn\u2019t a widespread phenomenon across the country \u2014 yet. While only 14 states<\/a> have active laws or executive orders on the books banning cellphone use in school, support for phone bans is on the rise<\/a>, according to a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAs parents, we want our kids to pay attention in the classroom, but we also want them to socialize, lift their heads up and look each other in the eye,\u201d Sue Mangino, Zach\u2019s mom, who works for Synchrony Bank, told The Post. \u201cWith phones, it\u2019s harder for kids to do that, so we\u2019re big fans of the ban.\u201d<\/p>\n For Lewis, who once taught kindergarten and third grade, a device-free classroom assuredly helps teachers keep order and enables kids to focus better during lessons.<\/p>\n \u201cI can definitely get behind the goal of making sure the kids are getting everything they can from their instructors and that the barriers to learning are being removed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Classrooms have a clear incentive for removing those \u201cbarriers,\u201d experts said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not banning cell phones. We\u2019re trying to give kids their attention spans back,\u201d Josh Altman, an\u00a0NYC licensed therapist<\/a> who has worked with teenagers and others, told The Post of removing distracting tech, which \u201clevels the playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSchools have become rampant with overuse, but everywhere has, so we\u2019re trying to bring focus back into classrooms where students can be more present, off their devices and improve face-to-face conversations,\u201d he continued, adding that \u201ckeeping phones out of school also reduces cyber-bullying.\u201d <\/p>\n A student at University High School Charter in Los Angeles shows off a Yondr pouch used to lock smartphones at the school. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n To date, 2.5 million US students have started the process by using a Yondr pouch \u2014 a lockable sleeve used to secure devices for shows and concerts at various venues, including Madison Square Garden<\/a>, Barclays Center in Brooklyn<\/a> and some Broadway theaters<\/a> \u2014 from the moment they arrive at school to the minute they\u2019re dismissed, according to the company.<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to help create an environment for students that\u2019s free from distractions \u2014 at least for the six to eight hours a day they\u2019re in school,\u201d Graham Dugoni, Yondr\u2019s CEO, who developed the product 11 years ago, told The Post. <\/p>\n In addition, in any city, town or state with a phone ban, it\u2019s critical for school leaders to provide a dedicated phone line for families to contact their students in case of emergency and to communicate clear protocols should a security incident occur on campus, Dugoni said.<\/p>\n \u201cParents worry about being able to reach their children if an emergency happens, but every teacher and administrator has access to a phone,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Dugoni hopes a phone-free environment offers students a feeling of freedom.<\/p>\n Graham Dugoni, inventor of the Yondr smartphone case Yondr<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there aren\u2019t phones present, we\u2019ve seen a huge increase in academic performance and fewer disciplinary situations,\u201d he contended. \u201cKids are less worried about being recorded during an embarrassing moment, they\u2019re not distracted by social media, they\u2019re talking to each other more, and they\u2019re springing back into life.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is how powerful a phone-free environment can be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zach Mangino, a rising senior at Wilton High School in Connecticut, spent most of the last school year…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":124204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,2738,6335,1165,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,4757,12492,40852,3060,10740,6214,242,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-124203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-connecticut","10":"tag-exclusive","11":"tag-lifestyle","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-parenting","20":"tag-phones","21":"tag-public-schools","22":"tag-schools","23":"tag-smartphones","24":"tag-students","25":"tag-tech","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-united-states-of-america","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114983115588630556","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}