When Arlington County, Virginia, students return from winter break, a new bell-to-bell ban on cellphone use will be in place.
The Arlington County School Board voted Thursday to implement an all-day ban on student phone use, with high school students being granted brief access at a time to be established by each principal.
Under the policy, students will be expected to have their phones off and away when they walk into the school building each morning, and have it off until the end of the instructional day.
Superintendent Francisco Duran said the policy is “making sure that we do what we can to provide spaces of learning for students and teachers that are free of electronic devices as much as possible.”
Each high school principal will determine the time and location for students to check their phones and quickly respond to messages in the middle of the day.
“Is everyone going to be happy with this? No. Is everyone going to think this is the best approach? No. But we have to, I believe in this moment, try this,” Duran said.
He added that school leaders have been listening to feedback, in an effort to provide teachers and students with the ability to promote learning.
“I think we have put our best effort forth to try and understand the pathway toward learning spaces, learning environments that are free from distraction,” he said.
A pilot program underway this year has been working well, according to Duran.
“We’ve learned, and seen thus far, there has been quite a bit of positive enhancements to the learning environment in our classrooms,” Duran said. “We have heard from many teachers, and we’ve seen the impact on student learning.”
With a unanimous vote from the school board, the new all-day policy will be implemented Jan. 6.
“It’s time that we have a policy that will protect that instructional space,” Duran said.
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