Students at the Tamalpais Union High School District\u2019s five high schools will have new cellphone storage devices this fall to help create \u201cphone-free\u201d school days.<\/p>\n
Trustees voted 3 to 2 on Tuesday to order NuKase hard plastic lockable cellphone cases for students at Tamalpais, Redwood and Archie Williams high schools.<\/p>\n
The board also agreed to purchase small cellphone storage lockers for San Andreas and Tamiscal, the district\u2019s two alternative high schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is hands-down that restricting students\u2019 handling of phones for the school day will improve student learning,\u201d Cynthia Roenisch, the board president, said in voting for the purchases. Trustees Kevin Saavedra and Jenny Holden also voted yes.<\/p>\n
Teachers will lock the phones in the cases at the start of the first class period of the day. At the end of the seventh period, teachers will unlock each student\u2019s phone for them to take home.<\/p>\n
While a \u201cphone-free\u201d school day was not a total cure for cellphone app addiction or the negative effects of cellphone use on mental health and learning, \u201cit does give our children a chance to reset and recalibrate,\u201d Roenisch said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are continuing to harm kids if we don\u2019t move to \u2018bell to bell,’\u201d Roenisch said.<\/p>\n
Saavedra agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am confident this plan will not solve 100% of the problem, but it\u2019s the best option out there, and we have to do something now,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any reason to delay this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holden said she has noted \u201ca shift\u201d in parent and student attitudes toward recognizing the harm caused by the cellphones, especially since the recent legal verdicts against Meta, YouTube and other social media companies.<\/p>\n
The verdicts, by juries in New Mexico and Los Angeles, said that the companies knew their apps were addictive and harmful, but they didn\u2019t care and didn\u2019t do anything to change it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we would be negligent if we didn\u2019t do this now,\u201d Holden said.<\/p>\n
Trustees Ida Green and Emily Uhlhorn, who voted no, said they were not against the \u201cphone free\u201d concept, but they both had concerns about the speed of the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s a no until we see how it works,\u201d Green said. She was also concerned about liability if a student were to drive off campus during lunch, get into a crash and not have a phone to call 911.<\/p>\n
Uhlhorn said she wanted to allow more time for parent and student education about the need for the \u201cphone-free\u201d day. She suggested the district do a temporary trial run of the \u201cno phones on campus\u201d approach already in use at Marin Catholic High School, or try a mandatory backpack phone stowaway system, before making a financial commitment on locking devices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not ready to spend $100,000 on this now,\u201d Uhlhorn said. \u201cI would like more two-way communication with parents and students to happen before spending the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roenisch said district officials have already discussed the issue of cellphone addiction, student mental health and learning distraction for almost three years.<\/p>\n
Currently, the district requires students to store their phones in caddies or trays during classes, but they may retrieve them during lunch or between classes.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Courtney Goode said the current policy doesn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n
Students who are addicted to their phones can be distracted just by looking at their phone in the caddies and knowing they will get it in a half hour, he said. By grabbing their phones right after class, the students\u2019 young brains do not have time to integrate the lessons just learned, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent a lot of time talking to people at schools that instituted the \u2018phone-free\u2019 school day,\u201d Goode said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not heard one administrator say that kids were worse off,\u201d he said. \u201cThey said there was actually more laughter, and more joyous students throughout the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goode said he has met with site administrators and lead teachers in the Tam District Leadership Council on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them the locking cases would only require teacher involvement one or two times a day, compared to the estimated 10 times a day now,\u201d Goode said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey laughed at me and said it was more like 100 times a day of interruptions,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2018Can I get my phone now? I need to get my phone.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The NuKase cases, which will cost $104,000 in the first year and between nothing and $10,000 in subsequent years, are cheaper than the previously considered Yondr pouches, which would cost $145,000 the first year and $30,000 in subsequent years, Goode said.<\/p>\n
The NuKase cases also are less hackable than the flexible fabric Yondr pouches, which can be cut, torn open or easily unlocked, he said. Because the cases are semi-transparent, it would be harder for students to put in a fake phone or a deck of cards to mislead a teacher.<\/p>\n
Goode said the district would delay the purchase of a district maintenance vehicle by one year to offset the cost.<\/p>\n
About 20 people in person and online offered mostly supportive comments on the new plan.<\/p>\n
Tracy Foose, a parent, said the cellphones\u2019 electronic messages are not what is needed for the normal development of young brains.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe adolescent brain needs real-world input to help cognition, socialization and impulse control,\u201d Foose said. \u201cThis is one thing we can do to improve student health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parent Noah Goldberg agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA delay is not going to make it any easier,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s just cut the cord and help our kids move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goode said that district and school administrators, along with interested teachers, would work on an implementation plan for the district\u2019s approximately 4,400 students through the spring and summer. Student and parent education seminars also will be offered in the spring and fall, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students at the Tamalpais Union High School District\u2019s five high schools will have new cellphone storage devices this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[259182,259186,2356,180247,526,192,177401,259187,97,259188,203956,2558,983,259189,5415,259183,66934,165,3,4910,5413,7234,259190,259184,24356,39792,203955,3053,122454,259185,74,100587,18068,259191],"class_list":{"0":"post-594592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-archie-williams-high-school","9":"tag-belvedere","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-corte-madera","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-environment","14":"tag-fairfax","15":"tag-greenbrae","16":"tag-health","17":"tag-kentfield","18":"tag-larkspur","19":"tag-latest-headlines","20":"tag-local-news","21":"tag-marin-city","22":"tag-marin-county","23":"tag-marin-schools","24":"tag-mill-valley","25":"tag-mobile","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-newsletter","28":"tag-north-bay","29":"tag-northern-california","30":"tag-point-reyes","31":"tag-redwood-high-school","32":"tag-ross","33":"tag-san-anselmo","34":"tag-sausalito","35":"tag-smartphones","36":"tag-tamalpais-high-school","37":"tag-tamalpais-union-high-school-district","38":"tag-technology","39":"tag-tiburon","40":"tag-uncategorized","41":"tag-west-marin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}