"I fully understand, because of the number of shootings that occur in schools, that parents are going to continually be concerned about that ... It's a scary time in the world in schools. It just is," said Manchester Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Geary. "Unfortunately, we are balancing that with the vast majority of the time, where we're trying to keep kids engaged and on task in schools."
Since the state published its guidance around cellphone restrictions last year, Connecticut education officials have had some conversations about what lines of communication in crisis situations look like, said John Frassinelli, director of school health, nutrition and family services at the state Department of Education, at the Sept. 3 meeting. "But we haven't had calls questioning the implementation of those cell phone policies. Quite the opposite, actually," he said.
In Manchester, where middle and high school students are required to store their devices in magnetically locking Yondr pouches, officials have described the phone-free approach as a "model" for other districts, noting the policy's positive results such as better grades and attendance. And this school year, even more schools are implementing their own restrictions.
"There's a reason why we've gone to a phone free space," Geary said. "And I think most parents, you know, see the value in that also."
But that didn't mean the hesitancy over cellphone bans wasn't real and present, as the news of another school shooting has reignited the nationwide debate between parents worried about communication in an emergency and school officials seeking to minimize distractions.
"That always seems to be connected and comes up when we have one of these unfortunate incidents ... there always seems to be a concern that parents are very concerned that they have no way of getting in touch with their child when one of these unfortunate things happens," said Erin Benham, vice chairperson of the state Board of Education at the Sept. 3 meeting.
In Branford, the district's new cellphone policy has been met with pushback, and a petition that seeks to end the use of Yondr pouches at the high school has more than 200 signatures, specifically citing safety concerns.
"Students should have peace of mind that their family is only a swipe of a screen or the click of a button away during an emergency," the petition says. "With Yondr, that peace of mind is gone, leaving everyone more vulnerable ... Students deserve immediate access to their families and/or 911 in the event of danger."
For Jackie Britt-Friedman, a clinical child psychologist at the Yale School of Medicine and a cellphone restrictions proponent, that concern seemed generally to be the reason people were opposed to stricter cellphone policies, she said. And she wasn't surprised that it came up so often.
"Of course, as a parent, you worry about what could happen to your child," said Britt-Friedman, who is one of the parents currently advocating for stricter cellphone policies in the Ridgefield school district. "I have thought about this from both perspectives, and can really empathize, you know, from a parent's perspective, certainly in light of the tragedies that have happened, how much parental anxiety there is."
That reason appeared to stretch nationwide as well. According to a survey last fall by the National Parents Union, the primary reason parents want their children to have a cellphone at school is to be able to communicate in case of an emergency at school.
However, many school safety experts nationwide agree that during an emergency, kids are actually safer without cellphones. One of the main reasons was because of the distraction intrinsic to cellphone use, said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers.
"If we're in a critical incident situation, we as a whole need students focused on their teacher and the direction that the teacher is giving them, not focused on their device. Because if they're on their device, they're distracted," said Canady, who also has an extensive law enforcement background.
In Ridgefield, a letter sent to the board of education advocating for a bell-to-bell cellphone ban has more than 500 signatures, Britt-Friedman said. The letter references information from the consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services, noting the potential dangers of cellphone use in an emergency.
"We know that students having cell phones doesn't help them, even though it may make parents feel more secure — it's not actually helping them be more safe," she said.
When all students are on their phones, that can spread rumors and cause community-wide panic, Canady said. In some cases, that has led to parents rushing to the school, and traffic unintentionally blocking the ingress and egress of emergency vehicles and first responders, ultimately hindering emergency response, he said.
At the Sept. 3 state Board of Education meeting, Frassinelli also said prioritizing official lines of communication between school administration and first responders was critical, as was preventing misinformation that could delay response.
"I fully understand as a parent that you'd want to get in touch with your kid right away," Geary said. But the school district has clear ways to communicate with families in an emergency — student cellphone use or access was never part of Manchester's emergency drills to begin with, and their restrictions didn't change that, he said.
However, another Connecticut district that implemented a new cellphone policy this year does specifically address cellphone access in a lockdown situation.
Starting this fall, Stratford students are required to put their cellphones away during the school day, with a designated cellphone box in all high school classrooms. The policy aims to specifically balance the goal of reducing cellphone use in class with parent communication concerns by also acknowledging what would happen to the locked away cellphones in an emergency, said acting Superintendent Heather Borges.
"If there was ever an emergency, the teacher would grab the entire box, go to the safe-approved location and distribute the phones to the students," Borges said. "When they are safely isolated, in whatever the appropriate place is due to whatever emergency is happening, they can be distributed."
The goal was to reach a compromise between access concerns and district safety protocols, she said. "We had community members who shared their fears of risk and wanting their students to be able to have access to them," Borges said. "So it works for both sides."
But every district was different, and Borges said it was important for each individual community to be able to have their own conversations about what a cellphone policy should look like in their district, and prioritize education overall. Overall, community input and collaboration was key for easing concerns about safety, district leaders and state officials agreed.
"I think that's most important is educating the parents, because it is the parents that seem to be most alarmed when these types of things are happening, until they review the policy and realize that they are very safe, there are options, and contact is possible," Benham said at the recent state Board of Education meeting.
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