WEST LEBANON — As the new school year begins, Upper Valley school officials, like their counterparts around the country, are trying a variety of approaches to limit cellphone use during classes.

The efforts come as public health experts warn about the dangers of social media content and advocate for policies to protect children and guide parents.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in June called for warning labels on social media platforms, and the Biden-Harris Administration launched an initiative last month to advance the health, safety and privacy of children online. 

“The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor,” Murthy wrote in a June 17 op-ed in the New York Times. 

Limiting children’s screen time is aimed at addressing concerns about privacy and toxic content on social media sites, cyberbullying and youth and adolescent brain development. 

“Schools should ensure that classroom learning and social time are phone-free experiences,” Murthy wrote. 

Schools in the Upper Valley are trying to address the risks cellphone use can pose by implementing flexible guidelines, outright bans and locking devices to keep students safe, focused and healthy during the school day. 

Middle road at White River Valley High

For the past few years, there’s been a procedure in place at White River Valley High School in South Royalton to handle smartphone use by students. As students enter class, they’re supposed to put their phones away in their bags or in a designated spot in the classroom.

But enforcement was uneven and up to individual teachers to decide whether to halt class and crack down on phone use or just carry on. This year, which started Thursday, the school, which serves the towns of Bethel and Royalton, is reinforcing its procedure.

That’s reassuring to Lisa Dragon, a science teacher at the school since 2015. “I’m excited that this year, there’s a little bit more of a universal procedure,” she said in a phone interview.

Last year, she tried positive reinforcement to encourage students to leave their phones in the sleeves of a hanging shoe holder by the door as they entered.

“It was really just about teaching the procedure.” she said.

If a student left their phone in the sleeve, she might leave a little note to thank the student for doing the right thing. The note might also say that the student could hand it in and drop their lowest homework grade. Or she might leave a piece of candy in the sleeve with the phone.

“I tried throughout the year to appreciate how they were doing it,” she said.

Results were mixed. Most students are able to put their phones away for the class period, and some use their phones productively, to manage their schedules, for example.

But in the past couple of years, a small subset of students has become much more attached to their phones, she said. Smartphone use seems “compulsive” in some cases.

“It seems to make them feel pretty anxious not to use them,” she said.

These are students who are struggling in school or in life, and their phones seem to provide a refuge. But the distraction of the screen also can sever connection with the community and with the supports the school offers, Dragon said.

The question for teachers has been: “Is it our responsibility to teach them to be responsible technology users?” Or should the school “give them the gift of a technology-free day to learn?” Dragon said.

The school’s procedure is a middle road. Students can still use their phones between classes and at lunch, for example.

If there’s a balance to be struck, last year it leaned too far toward lenience.

“I think it got looser last year,” Jamie Kinnarney, superintendent of the 10-town White River Valley Supervisory Union, in which WRVHS is the only public high school, said in a phone interview. “And what we found was disruption, not only in terms of student learning, but also in terms of school climate.”

Phones were enabling behaviors that rose to the level of investigations of bullying and harassment. The school’s leadership committee, which includes teachers and staff, “decided to tighten up enforcement,” Kinnarney said.

“Having these guidelines being held consistent makes the learning environment more predictable,” he said. With the school’s enrollment reaching a new high of 231 students, a healthy environment takes on extra importance.

So this year, each classroom will have a place where students will be required to leave their phones, as Dragon’s classroom did last year. And Dragon expects the greater consistency will make that part of her job easier, and leave more time and energy to devote to learning.

“I’m really hopeful about this year,” she said. It’s easy to look at the procedure as a restriction, but the students also have a lot of goodwill and understand that by putting their phones away “we’re helping our learning community.”

— Alex Hanson

Outright ban in Claremont

Last year, Stevens High School in Claremont became the first high school in New Hampshire to use specialized pouches for storing and securing cellphones during the school day.

A year into Stevens’ complete ban on cellphones, school administrators say the effort resulted in fewer distractions and increased student engagement, though the policy could still be improved.

“Teachers said they felt the (cellphone ban) has had a huge impact on the school climate,” said Superintendent Chris Pratt, who was Stevens’ principal prior to becoming the district’s interim superintendent in January. “In the cafeteria, and the hallways between classes, kids were talking and having conversations. And students have been interacting more with their teachers as well.”

The students are responsible for bringing their pouches to school each day and to show staff that their phone is sealed inside when entering the building, said Pratt. Yondr, a San Francisco-based company started in 2014, makes the pouches, which lock automatically when closed.

There are eight magnetic “unlocking” stations in the school, including three portable ones that are kept by staff. Students may unlock their pouches when exiting the building at the end of the day — or if going off-campus for lunch, which is a privilege granted to juniors and seniors.

Since adopting the phone ban policy, the number of student bathroom trips during classes have decreased and the average trip length has dropped by half — from 15 to 20 minutes prior to the policy to 7 to 10 minutes last school year, according to data from the school’s digital hall pass tracker.

Claremont Middle School will start using the Yondr pouches starting this school year.

Some students expressed mixed feelings about the pouches.

Locking up cellphones should be limited to students who show difficulty managing their use of the devices, Angelina Lin, salutatorian of this year’s graduating class, said in an interview in June on Claremont Community Television.

“When you’re a senior, one would hope that you’re mature enough to not be on your phone all the time,” Lin said.

Cami Ferland, valedictorian of this year’s graduating class, said that students taking dual-credit classes through River Valley Community College could not access their coursework online because the college’s server requests a security code that is only sent to the user by text message.

“It was kind of frustrating because I wanted to get my work done in school when I had some free time, but I couldn’t,” Ferland said in the community television interview in June.

There are some exceptions to the no-cellphone rule. Alex Herzog, former director of Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center, said that students in vocational courses may use a cellphone to access needed information online, such as a plumbing part or an ingredient substitute in a cooking recipe.

The phone pouches also are not foolproof, Pratt said. Some students would avoid locking up their phone by placing an old, inactive device in their pouch, for example.

But even if not a perfect remedy, the pouches have greatly reduced the amount of time and energy that teachers have to dedicate to addressing cellphone distractions.

“The positives have definitely outweighed the negatives,” Pratt said.

— Patrick Adrian

Lebanon policies vary by grade level

In Lebanon schools, electronics are completely restricted at the elementary level, and regulated at the middle and high school to promote distraction-free learning while giving teachers the leeway to allow phone use on a class-by-class basis.

Phones are “rarely an issue” at the elementary level, Hanover Street School Principal Leah Wheelan said.

If K-4 students at the Hanover Street or Mount Lebanon schools bring a phone to school, it must be kept in their backpacks during the school day. Last year, there were only two device-usage issues all year, involving a student using a phone and another using a watch, “so it was simple,” to address, Wheelan said.

The middle school’s leadership is working to create a “phone-free environment during the school day,” for the 468 students it serves in grades 5-8, Principal Tom Harkins said.

Middle schoolers must turn their devices off and put them away for the school day.

The policy asks that parents not call or text their children during the school day, but instead call the school office.

Rules about electronic devices are designed to “enable all of us to be present and be in the moment with each other during the school day,” according to the school policy.

Lebanon’s 626 high school students have more latitude with their phones than their middle school peers, as they are permitted to use them during passing time and free periods.

“Like every other school, we have students who at times, are using their phones when they shouldn’t be,” Lebanon High School Principal Ian Smith said by email. “Generally speaking, our staff does a very good job of making clear expectations around cellphone use, and administration sets the stage for that conversation during the opening assembly.”

While most “students use their devices responsibly,” Smith said, for those who don’t, “we pursue conversations with parents who are typically supportive of the message that we are trying to communicate.”

— Christina Dolan

Patrick Adrian can be reached at pfadrian25@gmail.com. Christina Dolan can be reached at cdolan@vnews.com. Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com.