BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Bethlehem Area school directors want to ban cell phones at the district’s middle schools and limit their use at the high schools starting next school year.
That’s because the handheld devices have negative effects on students' mental health, attendance and academic performance, according to a district committee investigating the issue.
“We, as a school district, are in a position to say, ‘Collective action problem? Collective action solution,’” said school Director Karen Beck Pooley at Monday’s curriculum committee meeting.
“Guess what? Nobody’s getting notifications because all of the phones are off,” she added. “We’re kind of uniquely positioned to be able to do something like that.”
The Bethlehem Area School Board will further discuss adopting a cell phone policy next month.
Current protocols 'all over the place'
School directors will receive recommendations for the policy from the committee of teachers, building leaders and district administrators who’ve been working on the issue for the past two years.
Nicole Bouhana, assistant principal at Broughal Middle School and a member of the cell phone committee, said teens receive an average of 237 notifications per day. That influx of messages can distract students from their school work – whether they’re looking at their phones, or thinking about what messages they may be missing, she said.
“So a lot of that affects their academics and their engagement, as well,” Bouhana said.
“So a lot of that affects their academics and their engagement, as well."Nicole Bouhana, Broughal Middle School Assistant Principal and cell phone committee member
Currently, BASD’s cell phone protocols aren’t streamlined – the rules differ from school to school, or even from classroom to classroom in the same building.
Board Vice President Shannon Patrick, a district parent, said her daughter has to hand over her cell phone in one classroom, but is allowed to listen to music on it in another.
“It’s very frustrating as a parent,” Patrick said, adding she supports a “no cell phone policy.”
The district implemented cell phone restrictions at its middle schools this school year. Two years ago, Liberty High School implemented restrictions for ninth-grade students. And three years ago, Freedom High School implemented cell phone restrictions schoolwide.
School board President Michael Faccinetto said the district's current cell phone protocols are "all over the place." Individual teachers institute their own rules because "there's no guidance from the top," he added.
What a 'no cell phone' policy could look like
As for a new districtwide policy, Faccinetto said he wants to see “no cell phones” when it comes to students in kindergarten through eighth grades. High school students may need a different set of cell phone rules, he said.
High school students have more reasons to need access to a cell phone because many of them drive to school or work part-time jobs or otherwise have reasons they may need to contact a parent, he added.
As a general rule, Faccinetto said students' cell phones should be turned off and out of sight – whether that’s in a locker or a backpack. And this policy shouldn’t just be limited to classrooms, he said.
Phones shouldn’t be allowed in the hallways or cafeteria, Faccinetto added.
“I will be a hard sell on anything that allows a phone to be out and on openly without that being a discipline referral during the school day,” he said.
"I will be a hard sell on anything that allows a phone to be out and on openly without that being a discipline referral during the school day."Michael Faccinetto, Bethlehem Area School Board President
School Director Winston Alozie said he agrees with Faccinetto, but worries about the response the district could get from parents with such a policy.
“If we’re going to do that, then that means we have to have an operator at every school answering the phone every time it rings,” Alozie said. “Because if something happens, and a parent can’t reach their kid, that’s on us.”
President Faccinetto said a new cell phone policy “doesn’t happen overnight” and the district will have to work to educate students and parents about new expectations and protocols.
“Obviously, we’re not going to yank phones out of hands,” Faccinetto said. “Some kids will cooperate and some will not, and there’s ways to deal with that.”
“But we have to have some kind of teeth for teachers to be able to enforce a policy, knowing that everybody from the board to the administration [has] their back, or the whole thing’s useless.”
The board’s policy discussion came after a middle school teacher seemingly tried to wrestle a phone out of a student's hands in a video circulating online last month. The district previously said it's investigating.
