Montezuma-Cortez High School will start a new cellphone policy this fall in an effort to protect student mental health, encourage classroom focus and lessen the effects of cyberbullying.
“Our school struggles with being low on the test score scale. We have really bright students, but they’re super-distracted with their phones, and it’s hard for teachers to compete with that,” Principal Jennifer Boniface told The Journal. “It’s just a constant losing battle when kids have their phones out.”
Under previous restrictions, students could use phones on breaks, but they continued to use them in class as well.
“It just didn’t work,” Boniface said. “There was this constant going against the rules, and teachers would get frustrated.
The new policy will prohibit cellphones from being out of the students’ backpack in classrooms, bathrooms and hallways. Students may access their phones at lunchtime.
“Our teachers are pretty engaging, but we’re never going to be as engaging as a cellphone that changes screens, lights and sounds and music,” Boniface said.
Boniface said she and Assistant Principal Erin Schmitt have been researching the impact of cellphones on students.
“It really is to help the students be able to focus on the lesson and be able to really engage with the learning and also be talking to each other, socializing, having discussions in the class instead of, ‘Oh, look what’s on my social media,’” Boniface said.
Drew Pearson, Cortez Middle School principal, said the middle school’s cellphone policy has had positive effects. The policy has been in place for about three years.
MCMS students are not permitted to use their phones during the school day, and phones muse be turned off and in their backpack at all times.
“We discussed it and just went with a wholesale, no cellphones policy from beginning to end,” Pearson said. “If you see a cellphone during the day, we have parents come and pick it up.”
And the results have been worth it.
“The impact was tremendous,” Pearson said. “We saw a lot of our behavioral issues and fights go down.”
While Pearson said other policies implemented during that time might have helped, the cellphone policy was a big part of it.
Bullying decreased, and student relationships improved.
“We saw kids at lunch talking to each other, and we saw kids at recess going out and playing, playing sports and stuff,” Pearson said.
Some parents initially were concerned about how to contact their children during an emergency.
“We’ve got a phone in every single classroom, and the students all have wonderful Chromebook devices with email, it’s just a lot more regulated,” Pearson said. “Most parents are honestly very supportive. Even with the confiscation, they’ve been overall generally supportive. It’s honestly been very beneficial to the school. I don’t think we’ll ever go back.”
After the founding of Instagram in 2010, suicide rates of adolescents climbed dramatically, and emergency room visits for self-harm increased, especially among young girls, according to The Economist and The New York Times.
Depression rates soared, and more students reporting increased levels of loneliness despite the constant connectivity of social media and the activities of others.
Teenagers check their phone an average of 489 times per day, with many using their phones the equivalent of a 40-hour workweek. Many screen time counts reach up to 16 or more hours per day.
Fox News reported in 2023 that 97% of students use their phones at school, and 60% are on their phones almost all night, even on school nights.
The impact on schools was immense. Schools saw an alarming growth in cyberbullying and a decrease in student focus and attention spans. Nearly 90% of high school students reported experiencing cyberbullying via phones while at school.
Boniface said this issue is being seen at MCHS.
“We’re seeing a bigger prevalence in bullying, the sexting with kids, taking pictures of each other going to the bathroom and blasting them on social media,” Boniface said. “They’re taking pictures of teachers and editing them. We had a bunch of students putting faces on naked bodies and pretending it’s really that person. It’s getting uglier and uglier, and that’s what kids are focused on.”
Students can’t focus on their classes when they’re worried about someone taking a photo of them going to the bathroom, Boniface said.
Bullies can hide behind a cellphone screen to induce fear and embarrassment onto their victims, making them harder to track and hold accountable.
Anxiety-related issues in students have also skyrocketed since the introduction of phones and social media apps.
“It’s a true addiction,” Boniface said. “We’re going to have to work with them and really help them through it. We really need to count on parents’ support and students to just give us a chance and try it out and be present for their learning.”
Pearson echoed Boniface’s thoughts.
“Kids have this tremendous addiction to cellphones, screen time, all the different social media pieces and all the negative impacts of that,” Pearson said. “We’ve even had kids on numerous occasions say, ‘Hey, it’s actually really nice not to have to worry about these things at school and not have to worry about like on Instagram,’ or have a peer taking pictures.”
To help combat the concerning new trends, many schools have begun implementing “nonacademic” bans on cellphones. States including Florida have enacted legislation to keep cellphones out of the classroom.
Schools have reported a decrease in student anxiety and bullying and an increase in camaraderie and focus.
To Boniface, this will make the initial challenges worth it.
“It’s not an overnight thing,” she said. “It might be a struggle, there’s some growing pains, but there needs to be teamwork. When other schools are going on the same path and finding success, it just seems the right way to go.”
