VDOE publishes draft guidelines on “mobile phone-free education” – Smithfield Times

The Isle of Wight County School Board will likely need to change its cell phone usage policies to comply with draft policies released by the Virginia State Department of Education on August 15 in response to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s executive order calling for “cell phone free instruction” in public schools.

Surry County Public Schools’ policies already appear to be closely aligned with the new policy, which, if enacted, would prohibit students in all grades from carrying cell phones during the school day.

Parents, students, teachers and other stakeholders can view and comment on the draft policy at https://www.doe.virginia.gov/programs-services/school-operations-support-services/cell-phone-free-education-in-virginia-k-12-public-schools through September 15. The VDOE plans to release the final policy on September 16.

According to the draft policy, elementary, middle and high school students will not be allowed to possess a mobile phone or other electronic communication device “during the entire school day.” The policy defines the term to include the entire time between the first bell that begins school and the bell that ends school, including lunchtime and the time between blocks of classes.

At the high school level, cell phones are permitted to be “used on school property before or after school,” but during class time, elementary, middle and high school students must “use school-internal communication tools and platforms” to communicate non-urgent concerns to their parents.

The guidelines require educators and sponsors of extracurricular activities to “use non-social media-based apps to communicate information about activities and sports schedules to students during school hours.”

School employees “should set a good example and establish clear limits on their own use of cell phones solely for emergency or crisis communication purposes,” the guidance states.

In an emergency, “it is important that adults have access to a cell phone or class phone to coordinate crisis notifications and emergency safety plans.”

Youngkin’s July 9 order, which blames cell phones for a nationwide rise in mental health crises among teens, requires school boards to adopt new policies on cell phone use by Jan. 1. The policy document further states that school boards must regulate cell phone use on school buses, but does not mandate that cell phones be banned on buses.

The Isle of Wight County Schools’ existing cell phone policy, Policy IIBEA, was last revised on October 12th. It allows students to use cell phones in color-coded zones.

In areas designated as green zones, which include cafeterias, common rooms and hallways at the high school level, student use of cell phones and other electronic devices is largely unrestricted. In areas designated as yellow zones, which include classrooms in grades 4 through 12 and common rooms where classes congregate, limited cell phone use is permitted at a teacher’s discretion. In red zones, which include all areas where children in kindergarten through third grade are present, all common rooms in grades 4 through 8, and bathrooms and locker rooms in high schools, cell phones are prohibited.

According to Airon Grim, Surry’s director of assessment, career preparation and instructional technology, cell phones are already banned at Surry’s only elementary school, Surry Elementary. Middle school students are required to turn off their cell phones and store them in their lockers when entering Luther Porter Jackson Middle School. At Surry County High, he said students are required to turn off their cell phones during class and store them out of sight.

According to data from the American Psychological Association cited in Youngkin’s order, American teenagers spend 4.8 hours a day using YouTube, TikTok and other popular social media apps on mobile phones, with 10% of the highest-volume users expressing suicidal or self-harming intentions in the past 12 months (as of April 1 of this year).

According to a 2020 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System, suicides among Virginians ages 10 to 24 increased 58.6% from 2007 to 2018. Virginia had the 32nd highest increase of the 50 states. 2022 data from the Virginia Department of Health show that emergency department visits among Virginians ages 9 to 18 for suicidal thoughts, self-harm, or suicide attempts more than doubled from 6,520 visits in 2016 to 14,298 in 2021.