Allegheny Valley looks into cellphone restrictions for students during classroom time

Is there a reason why the Allegheny Valley School District isn’t restricting students’ access to their cellphones during instructional time in the classroom?

That’s the question school board directors asked administrators Wednesday to look into.

Board member Larry Pollick suggested the district implement a policy restricting cellphone use in the classroom. He said other school districts have holders similar to a door-hanging shoe pocket for students to store their turned-off phones during class time.

Pollick and board member Mary Ellen Ecker said recent research has shown increases in student achievement when phones are restricted during classroom time.

“Now we have complete, uninhibited instruction,” Pollick said. “If there’s an emergency, we have intercom. Somebody would call the office, they would say, ‘Can Larry please report to the office?’ And you would.”

During class transitions, students would regain access to their phones and could check them if needed before putting them back into a cubby-style pocket before their next class.

“They should not be in the classroom during instructional time,” Pollick said.

Ecker supported Pollick’s idea. She pointed to a University of Texas study that found a phone use ban improved test scores by 6.4% and prompted a 14% improvement among low-achieving students.

“We need to lose the distraction and give the teacher the attention that they deserve,” she said.

Superintendent Patrick Graczyk said cellphone access in class is up to each teacher’s discretion. He said teachers can tell students to put their phones away or allow them to use their phone during the class period as long as they’re following the teacher’s directions.

“It’s really, at this point, at the judgment of the teacher if they want to restrict it in the classroom or not,” Graczyk said. “If we want to go with something more restrictive, it wouldn’t take long to come up with an idea. Implementation would be a different story.”

Pollick advocated for a school policy restricting cellphones rather than the current method of teacher discretion. He said students already have educational technology in the classroom, such as Chromebooks or laptops.

Such policies are trending both locally and nationally. Students at Woodland Hills High School in the upcoming school year will have their cellphones collected each morning. Phones will be stored in a secure location during the school day, and students will retrieve them at the end of the day.

Cellphones are prohibited for nonacademic use at 77% of schools nationwide, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but it’s unclear how strictly those policies are enforced.

“We’re not going to invent the wheel on this,” Pollick said. “It’s already out there, and it’s being done. How can we do it, and how soon?”

State funding has become increasingly more available for Pollick’s idea, board member Paula Moretti said.

The 2024 state budget contains language that adds the purchase of lockable cellphone storage bags as an eligible use for grant money for school districts for school safety or student mental health uses.

Board President Nino Pollino agreed with having district administrators look into students’ cellphone access. He said his concern is how teachers would deal with those phones during that period.

“If there is an evacuation, are the kids going to go to their phones and find their phones? There’s got to be a process … so that it doesn’t slow down the evacuation,” Pollino said.

“There might be other things that might need to be thought through.”

If there’s a reason why students’ cellphone access should be at the teacher’s discretion and not a policy, administrators should explain that to the board, too, Pollick said.

Pollino said he is interested in discussing and hearing all sides of the idea.

“It needs to be thorough and talked about,” Pollino said. “I think we’re taking the appropriate steps.”