The school district is among the first to adopt restrictions on phone use for its 29,690 pupils, banning cellphones at the start of this school year throughout the school day at the elementary and middle schools, and in classrooms in high schools. High schoolers are still permitted to use their phones between classes and during lunch.
The year was an adjustment for students, with kids growing reliant on their devices for socialization, entertainment and education during pandemic-era school closures. Some referred to their phone use as an "addiction," when asked last year. One middle schooler logged as much as eight days worth of screen time in one month.
"I remember crying because I was so worried about my generation," said Sacajawea Middle Schooler Amelia Mejia, an eighth-grader. "We are so dependent on phones, like when we hang out, it actually makes me really sad sometimes."
While many students said they're still reliant on their devices outside of school when asked at the close of this school year, the school district touted a number of student data points that show improvements in attendance and discipline across the district that may or may not correlate with less phone use at school, said chief of student success Scott Kerwein at a recent school board meeting.
"These are the closest associated categories and we're kind of noticing some trends," Kerwein told the school board.
From last school year to now, there was a 31 percent decrease in students' "failure to cooperate" with staff enforcing existing policies on phone use, which varied school to school and classroom to classroom last school year. Kerwein attributed this to the consistency across the district in this year's policy. Last year, there were 2,226 instances of uncooperative middle schoolers involving noncompliance, defiance or insubordination, down to 948 this school year. In high school, it went down from 1,634 to 1,530 in that same time span, though the rates for uncooperative 10th and 12th graders went up.
Tardiness decreased by an average of 10.4 percent across seven of the eight middle schools, excluding Peperzak Middle School, an outlier that added 252 eighth-graders this year.
Instances of lunchtime referrals, when kids have to each lunch in the office or a separate room from the cafeteria as a tool for discipline, went down 60 percent in middle schools.
"It's exciting to have data back up what the research suggested would happen and what we hope would happen," said board member Nichole Bishop.
"I didn't expect it to happen so quickly," she added.
Sacajawea staff said they found enforcement of the policy to be a nonissue, students handing over their phones without much of a fight when caught with it.
It's not what Liz Centenari expected. The student support specialist monitors both lunches and was already dreading enforcing the policy.
"I came in this year thinking, 'Woof, OK, battle up guys; this is going to be a tough one.' And it has not," she said.
Instead, she found that while lunches are much louder now, it's a sign of kids talking rather than isolating themselves on their phones. The library, connected to the lunchroom in the open-concept school, is also abuzz with mealtime energy as kids play one of the dozens of board games available for checkout. On June 10 at Sacajawea, a group of kids played a game of telephone, ironically, over their lunch boxes.
"It was so sad; they would sit in small groups and stare at their phones," said teacher Elena James. "And this year, they pull out board games, they sit and chat, looking into each other's eyes. The conversations are happening."
"Every day we learn something new about each other, which is amazing," said Sacajawea sixth-grader Davis Barbour.
Teachers at Rogers High School said the phone policy improved student attention and participation in class.
"I truly had a great year with students," said freshman English teacher Amber Dunn. "I thought that they were more engaged, more on task. They were learning."
While students pushed back against the policy during the first few weeks of class, that opposition faded quickly.
"Cellphones being put away was suddenly something easy to deal with because they already knew what the expectation and what the consequence would be," Dunn said.
Ceramics teacher Richard Bech said the policy made "all the difference in the world" in his classroom.
"The engagement is high, the accountability is high, and even the creativity is there in new ways," he said.
Junior Osvaldo Mojica said that while the policy may improve attention in class, students spend more time in-between classes on their phone than they did before.
"People use their phones a lot more now in the hallways on campus," Mojica said. "This policy was made to help engage more people and get more people to talk to each other, but I feel like it's been kind of the opposite."
The strict policy often feels like adults "looking down on teenagers" they believe cannot differentiate between good uses of technology in school and bad ones.
"The phone policy is just focusing more on just reducing time instead of actually focusing on the student and helping them," he said.
Junior Jasmin Covarrubias said some of her classmates have even gotten in trouble for passing notes to each other in class.
"My teacher thought that was fun. Like she finds it nice and funny because that type of thing didn't happen before," she said.
It's unclear whether or not the policy has stunted overall screen time for kids, some saying they feel compelled to make up for lost time once they're out of school and catch up on the deluge of notifications they missed in the 61/2 hours they're in school.
"It definitely wasn't as much of an issue, like at the beginning of the year, but now that we're more into it, I definitely do go on it more at home," said Glover seventh-grader Trinity Durham.
At Rogers High School, sophomore Calum Watts said he averages 14 hours of phone use a day. While admitting that significant phone use is "probably not the best," he said the phone policy has not curbed his phone use or improved his academics.
"I'm just actively telling myself all class not to go on my phone. I feel like I'm paying more attention to that than my actual work. It's distracting from my work, instead of being able to just really check my phone real quick and put it back," he said of not being able to use his phone in class.
Bech is still concerned with his students' screen time.
"I've had students that say they average 15 or more hours on their phones, and it also affects their sleep, so they see the negativity in it," Bech said. "When we put this rule into place kids were struggling with it in the beginning just because of that addiction. But after a few weeks, they realize how they're actually talking to each other," he said.
For some, the ban has motivated change. Davis at Sacajawea has been inspired to institute his own restrictions on apps like YouTube to just 10 minutes. He also set his phone to black -and -white to make the screen less appealing.
"If people can set limits for themselves, that always helps," he said.
The policy is unsurprisingly not universally appreciated among tweens and teens in Spokane. Sacajawea's Sylas Lieberman said he wished he could use his phone during lunch, like high schoolers.
"I feel like maybe you can like, watch a video while you're eating, something like that, something to entertain you," Sylas said. "It's like some people don't really have friends like that."
"Last year, everyone was on their phone during lunch time," said Sacajawea student Colt Webber. "Lunch wasn't too much human contact, but I was fine with that. I don't really like talking."
Rogers' Watts called the policy "terrible" and only there for teachers to use as a "power play" against students they dislike, he added. Watts would prefer a student-by-student policy that removes phones from students who use them inappropriately.
John Powers, a seventh-grade Sacajawea student, called the policy "pointless." Kids can stealthily access their phone at school, he knows a specific spot out of sight of staff that kids will steal away to for a few moments of screen time. Kids regularly visit the bathroom for phone breaks, some boldly scroll in class while sitting in the back.
To the dismay of some and delight of others, the phone ban isn't going anywhere in the district next school year. Amelia at Sacajawea predicted her peers will see the lingering effects of the ban well beyond their time at school. In 10 years, she imagines a world in which the idea of phones in schools is ludicrous.
"The habits that they're teaching us to believe in now will help us know the value in human interactions and the value in ourselves," Amelia said. "I think that sometimes phones almost dehumanize us, they take us away from who we are and how connected we are.
"Change happens, but it happens slowly."
Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.
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