Photo by Alex Blank

Off and away the entire day. Those are the words that are repeated over a thousand times a day in Charlottesville High School. 

On August 14th of this year, Beth Cheuk, the Supervisor of Community Relations at Charlottesville City Schools, sent out a message to families on behalf of the division informing them of the new phone policy being put in place “Off and Away the entire day”. This policy would be put into action in Charlottesville High School, Buford Middle School, and Lugo-McGinness Academy at the start of the new school year.

Beth Cheuk asked the rhetorical question during her interview, “What responsibility do we have to be more intentional about [students’] phone usage in our schools?” as national conversations have started to address the dangerous effects of cell phones. Because of questions like these, the Charlottesville School District decided to think more intentionally about students’ phone usage. 

Amanda Korman, Community Relations Liaison for CCS, told KTR “[the school board] knew this was an important topic so they asked to create a committee of people across the division”. 

The committee of staff, administrators, parents, and students met in the spring of this year and continued having meetings throughout the summer.  They completed formal research by reading a wide variety of articles about reducing phone usage and informal research by talking to teachers and admin in other schools about what they have seen to be successful. 

Despite facing difficulties coming up with an agreement, a policy was ultimately created. The first time a phone is seen, teachers are required to call administration who will take the phone until the end of the day when it can be retrieved by students. A second-time offense would similarly require an administrator to be called but the student’s parents or guardian would have to pick up the student’s phone  after school.

“I wish staff and students had been included initially in this process and it had been driven by data at CHS rather than data from other states/schools”, one teacher told KTR.

Everyone has different opinions on the best way to approach the phone issue and the committee was only a portion of the population. As the committee continued to meet into the summer, it seemed students felt their voices were not heard as much as was promised.

Because the policy was developed during the summer, it became an issue that families felt surprised by its suddenness. The school district addressed this by holding informational sessions with families and students to help people better understand the new policy.

In regards to the effectiveness of the policy, Cheuk commented, “There was a big pressure to have a policy in place when school started so everyone would know what it was, but now that we have school open, ‘off and away’ is going reasonably well in classrooms. ” She went on to say that “teachers and principals report that in the classroom it’s definitely accomplishing what they want it to do. They are having more focus, more relationships, and more engagement.”

Despite these reports from the division officials showing the policy’s success,  a survey conducted by the Knight Time Review with a small response size provided evidence that students disagree. Around seventy percent of students who responded to the survey say they have not seen an increase in focus with the new policy. Just under eighty percent of participants who responded to the survey of students say they haven’t seen an increase in productivity. Over eighty percent of students say they haven’t seen their mental health benefited positively by the phone policy.

Further, some teachers have not felt supported in the implementation of the new policy. One teacher commented, “I have called multiple times for support and no one has shown up or no one has answered. This has made students believe that nothing is going to happen and makes me not want to even call. ”

Students throughout the year have been voicing their opinions on what they believe needs to change in order to allow this policy to succeed. Over forty percent of the students who completed KTR’s survey said they wished the policy would allow them to use their phones at lunch.

Throughout the school year, this unintentionally has occurred. When walking through the cafeteria during lunch time you will see lots of phones. This shows the decreasing effectiveness of the policy as the school year goes on.

Other students wish they could use their phones to enhance their learning. Wes Swanson, a CHS senior, told KTR, “I would like to be able to use my phone to help me learn (calculator, googling things, etc.)”

Division leaders have been working with parents, staff, and students to address initial concerns with the new policy.  Staff is working on creating the balance of being role models to their students by not using their phones. At the same time, however, with a different set of responsibilities comes different needs.  

Korman said, “It’s just going to take time to sort out the balance for the staff leaders to use their phone or not, or what are an alternative communication tool that can send that same message of ‘I’m not just texting’”

The division has broadened families’ ability to reach students by email to accommodate last-minute changes to transportation. They have also implemented a new phone routing system to better manage phone calls to handle concerns about whether the schools’ officials could handle family phone calls as well as lighten the load on staff.

 However, not all students have had a negative experience with the new phone policy. Tenth-grade Student, Raffi Chen said, “It can help the people who are addicted to phones, reconnect to the actual learning experience”.

Another student told KTR, “I personally think that I get a lot more work done and my grades are better”.

As students look to the future of this policy, Korman said, “[We are] sticking with off and away. Yondr [will be] based on the feeling of the community.” 

The division is working with both Yondr, a company that creates mobile phone pouches which close with a magnetic lock to create phone-free zones, and the community to develop an understanding of both the value of Yondr and the implementation of the pouches. Yondr uses data to guide schools in the amount of magnets at the door that are needed for a specific number of students as well as what to do if kids forget their pouches. The division is working on taking these recommendations and modifying them to best work for Charlottesville City Schools.

Amanda Korman told KTR, “A hope that I have [is] for more student leadership both in providing feedback on what needs to change but also students to continue to use their voices to say why this matters to me or this is an improvement to me.”

Off and and Away the Entire Day is here to stay. Students have the opportunity to make this policy excel by giving constructive feedback and advocating for the things they care about.