As students file out of Hampshire Regional High School at the end of the day, they have to make a quick stop at one of the many magnets mounted near the exits. These magnets serve as the “keys” to the Yondr pouches their cellphones remain locked in throughout the day, close at hand but out of reach.

The detrimental effects of cellphone use by young people has been a pervasive topic of conversation for years now, but after the COVID-19 pandemic forced people of all ages to turn to technology as virtually their only social outlet, concerns about the mental health implications for developing minds have multiplied rapidly. Across the country, several states have considered or introduced legislation restricting cellphone use in schools or pressing individual districts to enact their own rules, including Vermont and Connecticut.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has not issued a mandate on cellphone policies, but has been encouraging school districts to limit their use, awarding almost $1.3 million in grants across the state in the past year for school districts to try new approaches.

In the Pioneer Valley, schools are testing myriad mitigation strategies when it comes to cellphone use within their walls this school year, even without state aid. These methods each offer different levels of phone access throughout the day — from simply asking students to keep them out of sight during class, to eliminating cellphone access from the first bell to the last — and have yielded a range of reactions from educators, students and parents.

At Hampshire Regional High School, where students in grades 7-12 attend school, the magnetically locked Yondr pouches are being tested as a pilot program throughout the fall semester, funded by state rural school aid. Principal Lauren Hotz is hoping to gauge the success of the program through periodic surveys and meetings with a newly formed cellphone advisory board before making a recommendation to the School Committee about how to proceed in the future.

Hotz said the novel program was not adopted on a whim, but deeply researched beforehand.

“We really tried to ground our work in the science,” she said. “Everything that we found indicated that cellphones do not belong in schools.”

From distractions during class to the mental health toll that constant cellphone access can take on students, school officials at Hampshire Regional decided that keeping students off of their phones throughout the entire school day would likely yield the best results. Securing phones in Yondr pouches at the beginning of the day has also been a way to remove the burden on teachers to manage student cellphone use, Hotz explained, allowing them to fully use teaching time without having to urge students to put their phones away.

Many students opt to place their phones in their Yondr pouches, but some upperclassmen leave their phones in their cars instead, citing an easier exit at the end of the day without having to stop to unlock their pouches.

So far, Hotz said, this model appears to be working. In a recent survey conducted among staff members and shared with the Gazette, 90.8% of those surveyed said they never have to interrupt instructional time to deal with cellphones with the Yondr pouches, as opposed to 22.4% in the pre-Yondr survey. The survey also indicated that educators are seeing more engagement among students in their classes and less manifestations of social media drama since the introduction of the pouches.

In Hotz’s own day-to-day experience at Hampshire Regional, she said she has seen fewer “heads down” in the hallways, and seen students engage more with one another between classes and during their lunch periods. She also said that on the parental side, the reaction has primarily been one of support.

Hotz said that occasional concerns have been raised by parents worrying about not being able to contact their children during the day, but she assures them that the school will continue to maintain open lines of communication in the absence of cellphones.

“While it’s not perfect and I know we’ll never have 100% compliance, we’re seeing some great results already,” she said. “It’s not just academic, but about mental health.”

Alyssa Colon-Garcia, a senior at Hampshire Regional and a student member of the cellphone advisory board, said that eliminating the distraction of her phone has helped her battle her tendency toward procrastination.

“It has definitely changed how classrooms are, just because when you have time you’re more motivated to just do your work instead of going on your phone and procrastinating,” she explained. “You also see a lot less kids disappearing into the hallways.”

Hampshire Regional seventh grader Rhys Craig said he hears many students complaining about not being able to access their phones, but he’s been seeing positive impacts overall.

“A lot of people don’t like not having our phones, but I think it’s a positive impact,” said Craig as he unlocked his pouch. “I’m less distracted during the day.”

A classroom approach

Other schools have taken somewhat less restrictive approaches to cellphone use. At Easthampton High School, students are asked to place their phones in hanging pouches or caddies as they enter each classroom throughout the day — a policy that also began this semester.

According to Principal William Evans, last year’s cellphone policy required students to keep phones turned off and out of sight, but he said “that policy was not as successful as we wanted it to be,” which prompted the new strategy.

With the per-classroom pouches, Evans said, the results have been much more encouraging, especially as shown by recent staff surveys.

“We’re seeing a lot more success,” said Evans. “Over 90% responded that the situation was excellent or very good.”

Anecdotally, Evans said he has been receiving positive feedback from parents as well. On the student side though, Evans said the most common response to surveys asking them how the new policy has impacted their school days has been “no change.”

“I think the students are reluctant as teenagers to admit that grownup intervention has impacted them,” he posited as a potential explanation. Meanwhile, some Easthampton High School students had other explanations as to why that might be the case.

Aastha Patel, a senior and president of the Student Council, said that she hasn’t seen much change in cellphone use because of the difficult nature of her classes. Even before the new policy, Patel said she typically used her phone during the school day for academic purposes.

“People who are in harder classes are less on their phones,” she explained. “With some classes, like AP’s, we don’t really have time to be on our phones.”

Turning to other devices

Two other members of the Student Council, freshman Dawson Daughdrill and senior Christine Raymond, said they’ve seen fellow classmates find workarounds to their limited phone access by means of other devices such as Apple Watches and laptops. The pair explained that students typically have laptops out during their classes for note-taking or other academic purposes, but often use them to text, play games or browse social media, especially when they’re using laptops they brought from home.

But even on the district-issued Chromebooks, Daughdrill and Raymond have seen some students access games like Fortnite and Minecraft, and messaging platforms like Snapchat.

“Our laptop is our phone,” said Raymond, who then explained that not all students are doing these activities during classes, and many of those who do are doing so when they have finished their work for the class.

Evans explained that district-issued Chromebooks are equipped with a software called Securly, which “allows teachers to monitor what students are doing on Chromebooks in their class.” In staff surveys asking about what issue the staff should focus on, Evans said in an email to the Gazette that “only 14% said appropriate use of Chromebooks, so that does not appear to be a significant issue at this time.”

Hampshire Regional High School uses a similar system, called GoGuardian, which monitors activity and restricts access to certain sources on district-issued laptops. Colon-Garcia said some students might find workarounds to this software, but for the most part, its strict restrictions prevent non-academic use of the computers, and can even be “kind of annoying” when it blocks the occasional academic website.

At Northampton High School, classroom cellphone caddies have been the preferred method of cellphone use prevention since last year, according to Principal Benjamin Taglieri.

“For the most part, it seems to be working well,” he said. “If students aren’t putting their phones in the caddies, they at least aren’t taking them out during class.”

Taglieri said he has also seen less cellphone use in the hallways, and teachers have told him that there is more interaction and engagement in class.

When it comes to the students’ laptops, Taglieri said that they are “a little bit easier to manage” than the phones, because while “it can be hard to block every game and social platform,” it is easy to tell a class to close their laptops, and harder for them to hide beneath a desk like they could a phone.

Out of sight, out of mind

At Hopkins Academy, Principal April Camuso explained that students are not allowed to have phones out during class time, lest they be confiscated to the office.

Instead of pouches of any kind, Camuso said the school is focusing on “consistency and clarity of expectations.” Those expectations are that middle school students do not use their phones during the school day at all, and that high school students keep them put away during class time but can use them freely during passing times, breakfast and lunch.

Students may ask for permission to use phones during class time, but unauthorized use results in the phone being confiscated and sent to the office, which Camuso said eliminates many of the conflicts that might arise when a teacher is in charge of confiscating and holding a disruptive phone. Multiple confiscations then lead to a meeting with the student and their parent or guardian.

“Overall the policy is working well,” said Camuso in an email to the Gazette. “We have been tracking data for the last two years and have very few students who struggle with repeated confiscations.”

Camuso said that previously, Hopkins had tried issuing warnings before confiscations and using detentions as a consequence for infractions, but the current policy “is more in line with our school values and focusing on cellphone use as a health issue” as opposed to a “disciplinary issue.” She also said school officials had discussed the possibility of using Yondr pouches or another system for keeping phones away during class time, but decided against it.

The goal at Hopkins, as with other schools implementing cellphone policies, is to minimize distraction during academic time and foster engagement among students.

As at Hopkins Academy, school officials at Hampshire Regional, Easthampton and Northampton high schools said they will continue to monitor the impacts of their policies on students, parents and educators as the test of time makes their effects more apparent.

Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com.