N.J. Cell Phone Bans Cause Tears, but Fewer Distractions

(TNS) — When administrators at McManus Middle School in Linden first introduced a new cell phone policy last fall — requiring students to lock their phones in pouches during the school day — some students struggled to part with their devices.

“I can remember four or five students in particular that literally broke down crying because they couldn’t handle it,” Principal Michael Walters said. “The only word I could use is withdrawal. It seemed like it was that emotional. It was that tough at first.”

Flash forward a few months and many middle school students in the Union County district seem to have adjusted to the change, their principal said.

Linden is among a growing number of New Jersey school districts using pouches made by the company Yondr that allow students to lock their cell phones inside and unlock them at the end of the school day.

Students in Linden can also opt to leave their phones at home or in their lockers, Walters said. He now confiscates phones once or twice a week from students breaking the rules, compared to confiscating one or two phones a day before the school district adopted the new pouch policy.

“I don’t care if they use a Yondr pouch or not — they just can’t have the phones out,” the principal said. “And it’s been successful, absolutely has.”

But, not everyone is happy with the new policy. Students at Linden High School have started a petition asking the school board to reconsider the cell phone pouch rules, arguing it’s unfair to require all of the high school’s nearly 2,000 students to lock away their phones.
Policies that require students to lock cell phones in pouches “only cause more issues and more distractions,” the petition said. The online student petition has nearly 640 signatures and a related paper petition has hundreds of names, organizers said.

New Jersey allows each of its nearly 600 public school districts to set its own policy on cell phones. Some districts ban students from bringing cell phones to school, while others require them to be kept in lockers during the school day. Some schools allow students to carry their cell phones as long as they are not taken out during class time.

Linden has long had a rule banning cell phones in schools, but the introduction of the pouches has led to greater enforcement and compliance, Walters said. Officials at the middle school spent $15,000 to lease roughly 750 Yondr pouches.

Yondr pouches are slim, individual cell phone holders. Students lock their phones inside and can carry the pouch with them during the day. After school, the pouches are tapped on an unlocking station — there are three at McManus Middle School — to free the phones.

In Linden, the cell phone pouches are only used for cell phones, not Apple watches or other wearable devices, officials said.

A Yondr spokeswoman declined to say how many New Jersey school districts use the pouches, citing privacy concerns. But, the company confirmed their devices are used in several towns, including New Brunswick, East Orange, Pennsauken, Jersey City, Willingboro and Bridgeton.

“We have seen increasing interest from New Jersey, and are currently in conversation with a number of districts, who would like to use Yondr in 2024,” Yondr spokeswoman Sarah Leader said last month.

In Plainfield in Union County, one middle school implemented a pilot project in 2019 to try out using Yondr’s cell phone pouches.

In Ocean County, officials in the Central Regional School District created a new policy last year requiring students to store phones in cell phone pockets during the day. The new policy was created after a 14-year-old girl died by suicide last year following alleged bullying incidents.

In Linden, the pouches are being used in both of the city’s middle schools and they were scheduled to be in place at Linden High School when students returned from winter break this month.

Linden Superintendent Atiya Y. Perkins said the pouches are designed to reduce distractions in the classroom.

Linden High School Senior Cristian Medeiros started the online petition last year to try to stop the implementation of the new cell phone pouch policy at the high school. He said the high school needs more mental health and social and emotional health programs, not a cell phone ban.

Forcing students to put cell phones in pouches is like “putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,” Medeiros said.

Students believe there are larger, more pressing issues in the school that need to be addressed, including adding more social workers to help students, he said.

Medeiros suggested making the cell phone pouch policy a disciplinary action for students who break the rules, not a blanket policy for all students.

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