During this 40-minute lesson, his students received a total of 600 notifications.

That’s what schools are facing when it comes to the distractions that smartphones pose in the classroom. The teacher was Nicholas Ferroni, a social and cultural studies teacher at Union High School in New Jersey, who was featured in a 2022 U.S. News & World Report article.

In 2024, smartphones are even more ubiquitous. What has changed are school districts’ policies governing phone use in classrooms.

The recent Quad-City Times and Dispatch-Argus three-part series on cell phone policies found that local schools are taking steps to limit student cell phone use in the classroom. Many schools now take a “get out and away” approach, with students keeping their phones in a locked cabinet or in a personal bag during class.

Davenport Central High School began its “Off and Away” policy last year and is using portable cabinets this year to store students’ smartphones during class.

Williams Intermediate School in Davenport is testing Yondr’s cell phone pouches in select classrooms next school year. The pouches allow students to keep their cell phones on them, but the sealed pouches prevent them from being used.

In some districts, prior to this policy, smartphone control was left to teachers in individual classrooms. This approach distracted teachers from instruction and resulted in inconsistent messages to students. We applaud this approach of school-wide policies, which administration told us will restore instructional time lost to smartphones.

The negative impact of smartphones on students is increasing. A 2023 study of college students published by the National Institutes of Health found that smartphones are associated with lower grade point averages, poor sleep quality, anxiety, loneliness, and depression.

In Quad-Cities classrooms, administrators and staff expect to see an improvement in academic performance as classrooms go phone-free, and teachers are already seeing increased engagement.

Scott King, a teacher at United Township, said that before the policy was implemented, students would look at their phones during recess or group work instead of talking to each other. Now that the smartphones are gone, “the kids are talking to each other again,” he said.

He said he has seen more friendships formed without smartphones in the past year than ever before.

While schools focus on curriculum, students are also learning how to behave socially, interact with peers and adults, and reach beyond themselves to experience the world around them. All of this works better when students are together and not on their phones.

Smartphones didn’t arrive in our classrooms after careful consideration of their pros and cons. They just showed up.

Schools have had to respond with measures to address the obvious concerns. While students may be hesitant at first, we believe they will see the bigger picture of a better school experience.

Smartphones are everywhere today. We use them to navigate our lives. Things like when to pick up our child from soccer practice and if there are any extracurricular activities are communicated via smartphones. We communicate spontaneously. And these new school policies require parents to get involved and plan accordingly.

Learning good phone practices during teenage years could help generations of students in their emotional, social and academic development.

These more restrictive smartphone policies in schools will need to be monitored and adjusted in the coming years to ensure that punishments are appropriate, for example. But the time is ripe for the idea of ​​banning smartphones from classrooms.

Students can’t do their best in school if they’re not fully present. And this world needs their best.