The high school, which had recently rolled out a new cellphone policy requiring students to store their phones in magnetically locked Yondr pouches, saw "significant" changes in patterns of student behavior during the first quarter, principal Katelyn Miner said. Students, she said, were getting into fewer fights and showing up to class more consistently compared to a year ago.
Grades improved as well, with students earning more As and Bs and fewer Fs, a trend that Miner said "got our attention" because grade distributions are "notoriously hard to shift."
She credited the improvement to the new cellphone policy, something many schools across the state have also recently embraced or are about to.
"When all of your data points get better quickly like that in one quarter," she said, "I think there has been a significant impact."
Since cellphone rules went into effect at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, some Connecticut school districts said they have seen measurable improvement in key areas, most notably academic achievement, attendance and discipline.
Officials said the policies have led to fewer distractions, greater engagement and improved relationships between students and staff.
Last August, the state Department of Education issued guidelines — at the request of Gov. Ned Lamont — for restricting cellphone use in Connecticut schools. Education officials stopped short of proposing a cellphone mandate, giving districts the freedom to craft regulations they felt would best serve their students.
For the second year in a row, Lamont, who has been outspoken in his criticism of cellphone usage in schools, discussed the topic during his recent State of the State address, touting the early results of the new cellphone policies.
"We also have more counselors at our schools, and I am told that getting smartphones out of the classroom has been incredible for learning and good for the soul," Lamont said. "Let's keep that progress going. Many schools are getting phones not just out of the classroom but out of the school all together."
PROMISING RESULTS
Miner said the number of As and Bs earned by Manchester High School students in the first quarter increased by 4 percent, while the number of Fs decreased by 3 percent, compared to last year.
In addition to getting better grades, MHS students were disciplined at a far lower rate for incidents unrelated to cellphone use, such as skipping class and physical fights. During the first quarter, MHS reported 369 non-cellphone disciplinary incidents, down from 1,040 such incidents a year ago. MHS issued 900 cellphone offenses during the first quarter of the current academic year, data shows. The school did not track these infractions in previous years.
Attendance at MHS also improved, with the rate of chronically absent students dropping from 25 percent at the end of last year to 18 percent after the first quarter of 2024-25.
"I'm really proud of our student body for managing those emotions about being expected to put their phone away and then being willing to see, 'Hold on, there are some positive outcomes because of that,'" Miner said.
Other districts that implemented or upgraded cellphone policies this year reported similar improvements in their student data.
In New Canaan, officials at Saxe Middle School received fewer reports of bullying, Superintendent of Schools Bryan Luizzi said.
Luizzi said he believes the decline in bullying incidents is "directly related" to student cellphone use during the school day.
"Often, feuds start online and (spill) into the real world," he said. "Since kids aren't checking those things during the day, I think it has really reduced that."
Matthew Laskowski, Stamford's interim associate superintendent for middle schools, said rates of chronic absenteeism and counts of student suspensions are on track to improve at the city's five middle schools.
As of Jan. 10, about 15 percent of Stamford middle schoolers were deemed chronically absent for the current academic year, according to data provided by Laskowski. Last year, the rate of chronic absenteeism at the middle school level was about 22 percent.
Meanwhile, suspensions, which include both in-school and out-of-school, totaled 207 for the 2024-25 year to date, which, if extrapolated to the end of the year, would fall well below the 590 suspensions handed out in 2023-24, the data shows.
Laskowski surmised the improvements in student discipline and attendance shown so far this year were not caused by any single factor. Instead, he said, they likely were the result of several recent initiatives at Stamford middle schools, including a new bell schedule that allows for staggered release times from classrooms.
"I believe the product of all of those things together have created conditions to improve the climate of the buildings," he said.
'THERE'S NOBODY TO TEXT'
At schools that require phones to be placed in Yondr pouches, some students have tried to skirt the rules by keeping their phones in their pockets, allowing them to sneak a text message or check their Snapchat accounts during opportune moments, officials said. Shortly after the start of the year, one not-so-slick New Canaan student who told his teacher he left his cellphone at home was later caught with his phone's flashlight shining through the front pocket of his pants.
With New Canaan teachers enforcing the cellphone ban district-wide, students no longer have an incentive to beat the system, Luizzi said.
"Even if they did have (phones) in their pockets, there's nobody to text because all of their friends have their things locked up," he said. "When a majority of kids are locking their phones, you're disincentivized to do the same thing."
In other districts, including Manchester, some students have handed over dummy phones and continued to carry their working phones throughout the day.
"Do I think we've seen some students lock up a burner phone or an old iPhone and then have a phone out a couple of hours later? Sure. I think we've seen a little bit of that," Miner said. "But typically that's the students who are struggling overall with getting the phone away for the day."
Hamden Superintendent Gary Highsmith recommended against using Yondr pouches at a recent meeting, partly because he said he foresaw students trying to beat the system. Hamden schools are in the process of writing a policy that would prohibit the use of cell phones and other devices during instructional time.
"Students are crafty," Highsmith said. "You can just look on YouTube and get a hack for the pouch in order to open up the pouch and get your phone out."
Highsmith also warned of a "growing broken cell phone business" that sells busted phones for students to use as decoys in school.
Sydney Betz, a seventh grader at Rippowam Middle School in Stamford, said the transition to a phone-free school day has been easy for her. But many of her friends — accustomed to using their phones at school — find the new policy annoying.
"Some of them used to call their friends during the school day for some random reason, but now they don't do that anymore so they can't talk to them quite as much," Betz, 11, said.
While the policy is irritating for some, Rippowam students have begun to embrace it, Betz noted. During the school's annual student-faculty basketball game before the holidays, many more students watched the game without using their phones compared to a year ago, she said.
EARLY DAYS
School officials said they experienced a few hiccups in the beginning of the year as both students and staff adjusted to the new reality of a phone-free environment. But overall, they said, rollout has been smooth and efforts to curb student phone usage have been paying dividends.
Some Stamford middle schoolers were reluctant to surrender their phones in the early days of the district's policy, Laskowski said. But those conflicts began to subside as officials held firm on their expectations for student conduct.
"When you walk into a building, it's very rare you'll see a student in the hallway with a phone in their hand," Laskowski said.
Derek Barrientos, an eighth grader at Rippowam, said many of his peers put the new phone policy to the test during the first week of school before they became fully aware of the consequences. Many students since have stopped using their phones out of fear it will get taken away and sent to the office.
Soon, Rippowam will add another deterrent by requiring students' parents or guardians to pick up seized cellphones after the school day is over, said principal Kristina Colmenares.
Middletown students have pushed back on the district's cellphone ban, with some of the students becoming "emotional" about the issue, a student representative on the city's Board of Education said. The district's new policy, which took effect last month, also has made it challenging for parents and their children to communicate, the representative added. Administrators, though, have called the initiative a success.
New Haven's cell phone-free policy, which involves Yondr pouches, began at the middle school level in January.
New Canaan took a collaborative approach to creating its cellphone policy at the middle school.
Luizzi said the district asked teams of middle school students and faculty members to brainstorm how best to eliminate the distraction of phones. Through those workshops, the teams helped designed the system that the middle school currently uses.
Instead of mounting magnets to unlock Yondr pouches on walls, for example, the school keeps them on movable carts so they are more accessible for students at the end of the day. The carts also can be wheeled into the classrooms of teachers who give their students permission to use their devices.
By making students part of the solution, Luizzi said, New Canaan avoided potential disputes over cellphone policies that have unfolded in places like Torrington, whose students walked out in protest of a new policy in 2022.
New Canaan teachers have been storing their phones in pouches, too, hoping to lead by example and show students that "they are the most important part of their day," Luizzi said. "It's really sending a very positive message across the school."
CHALLENGES
One of the biggest challenges of enforcing the new cellphone rules, officials said, has been handling the small groups of students who refuse to comply and helping them understand the benefits of being device-free during school.
Throughout the fall and spring semesters, Manchester High School maintains a "red list" of about 30 or 40 students whose phones are locked up in an office at the beginning of the day and returned in the afternoon, Miner said. Often, she said, these "red listers" also struggle with attendance, grades or other areas.
Of the high school's roughly 1,700 students, 295 students, or 17 percent, received more than one cellphone offense during the first quarter, data shows. The number of students who received more than three cellphone offenses during the first marking period was 116, or 7 percent, according to the data.
To support red listers, Miner said, MHS administrators shares research with them detailing the effects that good habits can have on their learning. Using printed report cards, MHS faculty also will show students the correlation between cellphone behavior and academic achievement and graduation progress.
"We didn't just sit with students and say, 'Hey, you broke the rule. Here's the consequence,'" Miner said, adding they "really spent time" explaining the reasoning for the rules with the students.
Stamford middle school students caught using their phones a second time are considered "Tier 2" offenders, Laskowski said. Similar to Manchester, school leadership teams in Stamford have been seeking "another layer of intervention" to support those students who repeatedly disobey the rules.
Gloria Nrecaj, a Rippowam eighth grader, said teachers have confiscated her phone about 10 times this year. She called the Rippowam's cellphone policy "reasonable" but said she wished teachers were "a little bit less strict" and issued warnings before taking away her device.
Nrecaj, who uses her phone "a lot" outside of school, said she has struggled to control the impulse to look at her phone during instructional time. "Once I come to school, it's hard to just keep it away," she said.
To remove the temptation, Nrecaj, 13, said she has tried silencing her phone using the "Do Not Disturb" feature and stashing it out of sight in her backpack. When she does, the results have been encouraging.
"I do focus way better when my phone is not near me," she said. "My phone takes me away from paying attention."
In New Canaan, Luizzi said teachers faced the challenge of reminding students who received gifts over the holidays that they must place all personal electronic devices, including smartwatches and wireless earbuds, into their respective pouches.
While the reduction in bullying and other infractions in New Canaan has been a welcome sign, Luizzi said, the goal behind the district's phone regulations is to empower students to develop responsible relationships with personal technology.
At a recent meeting with more than a dozen former New Canaan students who are now college freshmen, Luizzi said he noticed that none of the students pulled out their phones. The encounter served as a real-life example of the etiquette that New Canaan schools want to instill in their students.
"We're working to teach them appropriate times and uses," Luizzi said. "We're not saying that the phones are evil or bad. We're saying that we need to be in charge of our relationship with personal technology ... That's really our message."
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