Lamont joined Attorney General William Tong and Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker in a classroom at the school, which serves seventh and eighth graders. Since December, students entering the school must place their phones into magnetically locked pouches and can only access the devices when they leave.
The motivation behind the ban was to cut distractions and allow staff and students the time and focus they need to teach and learn, school officials said. Led by Illing Assistant Principal Ray Dolphin, the prohibition has brought a remarkable change, Manchester School Superintendent Matthew Geary said.
"If you were to walk around the building, you would not see a phone in this place. Kids' heads are up as they walk, not like this," Geary said, casting his eyes down.
"We're giving students the opportunity to be kids again," Illing Principal Idelisa Torres said, "the opportunity to interact with each other, just to be friends, without having to worry about things getting posted, pictures taken of somebody trying to set up a fight. That's pretty much been eliminated, and seeing kids interact with each other ... it's such a positive change."
Lamont had called for stricter control of cellphones in schools in his recent State of the State address, recommending that schools employ devices such as the Yondr Pouch used in Illing's $30,000 pilot program. The governor also is backing a bill calling on the state Board of Education to develop a model policy on students' cellphone use statewide.
"I'm getting a lot of feedback," Lamont told reporters, "more feedback than anything I've done in a while, and I think it really has hit a chord with parents and teachers — and the kids are OK with it."
Several students joined the press conference, sitting at desks facing Lamont and other leaders and answering their questions. The students said they were reluctant about the ban at first, worried, for example, about how they would contact their parents in an emergency. But their fears were allayed, one student said, by knowing that teachers have access to classroom phones. Another student said not feeling pressure to check a buzzing phone all day long has been a relief. The kids nodded their heads when Connecticut Education Association President Kate Dias asked, "Doesn't it give you the opportunity to just catch your breath?"
Teachers at the news conference praised the ban.
"I love it," teacher John Burkhardt said. "Before this, we'd have kids racing down the hallway with their cameras out to video a fight."
Teacher Patrick Regan said he used to play "Whac-A-Mole" in his classroom trying to stop students using their phones and placing violators' devices into a "phone jail" in the classroom.
The initial pushback from students and some parents, Illing teachers and administrators said, has been lessened in part because students always have possession of their phones, they just cannot use them. Many parents who give their children smartphones "don't realize what happens when that device comes into the (school) building," Manchester Board of Education Chairman Christopher Pattacini said.
"More and more we were seeing kids who were disengaged," Pattacini said.
The Illing policy also is good practice for students to regulate their future phone use at high school and in the workplace, he said. Asked if a similar ban would be launched at Manchester High School, Geary said conversations around that possibility will begin in a couple of months.
Tong had not seen a Yondr pouch before, and students and Torres showed him how it works, placing the attorney general's phone into a student's pouch. Tong focused at the news conference on the social media aspect of kids' cellphone use. Last fall, Connecticut joined more than 40 other states in suing Facebook parent Meta over allegations that it tried to addict children and teenagers to its platforms and that it misled the public.
The litigation ramped up Tong's efforts to hold social media firms accountable for their platforms' impact on youth mental health. He talked about TikTok challenges that encourage vandalism and other bad behavior. Lamont chimed in. "TikTok comes from China," he told students. "You're not allowed to do that on TikTok in China. They're much more restrictive."
For younger students in particular, social media exposure is damaging, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has said. Children and adolescents on social media, according to Murthy's advisory, "are commonly exposed to extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content and frequent social media use can contribute to poor mental health, including depression and anxiety."
Lamont said the state Department of Education will issue guidance to school districts on cellphone use, highlighting the implementation and experience at Illing.
Currently, 77 percent of schools in the U.S. prohibit non-academic phone use during school hours, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Policies, however, vary widely. Some districts leave enforcement to individual teachers. Some teachers collect phones before class and give them back when the bell rings. In some cases, students are allowed to have phones in class, but are supposed to keep them stowed in pockets or backpacks, which according to news reports from around the nation, is often an imperfect remedy.
Besides scrolling through social media and texts, some students use phones to cheat on tests, bully other students, and circulate inappropriate photos, according to news reports.
The pilot program in Manchester is among the strictest approaches to the problem. Torrington school leaders also decided in 2022 to use Yondr pouches, prompting a student walkout at the high school. Some Hartford schools use the lock pouches, but district administrators leave the decision up to each school.
©2024 Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
