FCPS launches cell phone storage pilot
Fairfax County Public Schools is launching a pilot program at seven middle schools to keep students’ cell phones locked away during learning time.
The program is aimed at limiting classroom disruptions and improving student engagement during instruction.
Participating schools include Luther Jackson, Poe, and Frost.
During the week of Sept. 2, students in the pilot program will receive a Yondr cell phone storage pouch.
The pouch is magnetic and stops students from using their phones for social media, text messages, phone calls, and internet browsing.
Each student will be responsible for bringing their own personal pouch to school every day. When they get to school, students will mute their phone or put it on airplane mode and safely lock it in their pouch and put it in their backpack. Airpods must be secured in the pouch or placed in backpacks. Smartwatches must be off or on airplane mode.
At the end of the school day, students will unlock their pouches using a Yondr base and retrieve their phones. Students will be responsible for their pouch for the entire school year. Yondr staff will help schools determine how many unlocking stations are needed.
Related story: Youngkin issues cell phone ban in classrooms
Students who need their phones for medical accommodations or to access the curriculum and make progress toward achieving their individualized goals will continue to have access to it.
Students who forget to bring their pouch to school must come to the front office to have their phones stored there for the school day. If this happens consistently, parents/guardians will be notified.
Students who lose or damage their pouch will be assessed an $18 replacement fee. Students who unlock their pouch, purposefully damage it, or use an alternate phone will be subject to disciplinary action, including confiscation or detention.
In case of an emergency, students will be directed to follow the FCPS crisis response plan. Every classroom is equipped with a phone intercom in case of emergency. All schools have an extensive intrusion alarm system, which is monitored 24/7. School staff and school resource officers have cell phones.
According to law enforcement, cell phones create a distraction for students that can compromise their safety during an emergency and can also alert an intruder to their location.
FCPS already has rules against students using cell phones in class, but having to constantly enforce these rules takes time, energy, and focus away from teaching. “By locking cell phones, our teachers can spend more time teaching and less time asking students to put their phones away,” FCPS states.
23 responses to “FCPS launches cell phone storage pilot”
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Finally!
My mom works at one of these pilot schools and I bet she is relieved. Cell phones have been a plague for years and teachers should not have to fear removing cell phones from students nor being slandered and mocked via social media that these children have access to 24-7.
All points in all the comments that have been made have some validity. However, those who have responded…”send them to the principal’s office”, or “have them serve detention”, or “confiscate the phone” need a reality check. Volunteer at a school and walk the halls. Then perhaps one will see that when they were in school as a 12-13 year old, life and self-discipline learned at home existed. Cell phone temptation did not rule lives like it does now. Agreed: there will be lost bags, financial risk, and behavioral issues, but there needs to be some way to instill self-discipline and social etiquette to allow learning, the whole purpose of schools.
All this to say, there will be 95% of students following the rules, the last 5% will cause many administrators big headaches and financial waste on cell phone bags.
The selected vehicle for implementing this policy is ABSURD. Each pouch costs $18 according to the replacement fee that they will charge a student. The cost of the unlocking/locking stations has not been disclosed. I envision major bottlenecks at the unlocking/locking stations that will lead to students being assessed tardies as well as students missing their bus or destroying their pouch so that they can access the phone at home after forgetting to unlock the pouch or forgoing unlocking the pouch so that they can catch their bus.
The solution implemented by the DoD is WAY cheaper. Small lock boxes with EMI shielding to block radio signals are positioned next to each secure space where phones are not allowed. We lock our phones up before entering the space and unlock the phones upon leaving using a key. Each classroom could get one of these lockboxes for a lot cheaper than the solution implemented by FFX Co Schools.
Alternately, FFX Co Schools could look at how they handled things in the early 2000’s for a lot cheaper. In 2003, when I was in high school, the rule was simple: cell phone in your locker. If you have a cell phone out in class, or it goes off in class the teacher took it. The phone was then sent to the front office where it could be picked up at the end of the day. Grow some Kohonas FFx Co Schools and back up your teachers.
DoD’s solution is largely voluntary. if you want in, and to get paid, you leave your phone at the door, voluntarily.
How does this work at school? With kids who don’t want to be there regardless? With parents who are already doing everything on their power to keep kids in school and on the straight and narrow?
Students will figure out how to unlock these pouches in about 5 minutes. It only requires a superconducting magnet like a Neodynum magnet to actuate the lock. WASTE OF MONEY. Just implement a very simple rule: cell phone in your locker. If you have a cell phone out in class, or it goes off in class the faculty takes it. The phone would then be sent to the front office where it could be picked up at the end of the day. Grow some Kohonas FFx Co Schools and back up your teachers.
Yup. There are Youtube videos up already of them having been defeated by kids.
I don’t think they should store them in full fledged lockers, since lockers have largely been done away with in some middle schools to save hall space, but i do think the idea of a cell phone locker that requires a PIN or similar is better.
https://youtu.be/Y6x9Z4piErk?si=oit0OLN4XsLncY4m
The “students” are not like when you and I went to school. They are violent and lack impulse control.
If the students are violent and lack impulse control, they should be imprisoned. That is what we do with violent offenders.
That is because the teachers are not backed up by the administration. A teachere should be free to dole out dicipline and should be backed up by the administration. Kids who are disruptive, kick them out of the classro0om and send them to the front office. Kids who have cell phones, take the phone and send it to the front office.
It sounds like you think the teachers should be able to make and enforce the rules for their classrooms and the administrators should support them, and that’s that.
Do you feel similarly for schools when they make decisions about requiring vaccinations? For COVID for example? How about the decisions they make regarding the books that are in the library?
If you wonder why Teachers and schools might feel beleaguered, unsupported, or otherwise under siege, make sure to think about from where the second guessing is coming.
What do the quotations around “students” mean?
I think I know, but I’d like to see if you will say it. Bonus points if you are able to respond without other wink-wink nod-nod dog whistles. Extra bonus if you are able to not use either the W-word or the D-word.
Kids will just bring “fake” cell phones that have no service, and keep their real one in them. Not too hard to figure out.
At the Kennedy Center , For certain performances, at the request of the artist, phones are locked in pouches. At the end of the show 2,500 phones are unlocked in minutes. No big deal. Just wish EVERY performance required locked pouches.
I don’t understand what problem this “solution” is trying to solve. It seems like the problem is that teachers are unable to confiscate a phone in class. The purpose of the bag is to prevent the phone from ringing during class. But now when a student fails to bag their phone, or “forgets” their bag, what happens? Why not just teach them to be responsible and silence their phone without the bag? Do you think they are actually incapable of that? Phone rings — principals office. Phone rings again — detention. Phone rings a third time — suspension. I don’t see the problem.
The problem isn’t with phones ringing. It’s with kids using them. Silencing phones isn’t a solution.
You just mentioned the problem- everyone is scared to keep students accountable. They fear the students, the parents, public opinion, they fear everything except not doing the right thing. This is how schools are run now. If this is shocking to anyone, start paying attention. Society is swallowed up in fear.
By the way, this is going to result in lots of students having dead phones at the end of the school day. Unable to contact their parents, etc. What the bag does is prevent the phone from ringing. The bag blocks radio waves. That is why you must put the phone in Airplane mode. Otherwise, inside the bag it will go crazy trying to hear a cell tower. This will cause the battery to drain down, and may also overheat the phone. Do you think the kids are responsible enough and careful enough to put the phone in Airplane Mode every time? (Or better, just turn it OFF?) If so, why can’t you get them to just do that without the bag, which would work even better? ANSWER: Without the bag (which is going to be lost, damaged by putting through the wash or rough play — it’s tiny metal mesh fibers, or “forgotten” at home, or lost, ….) the teacher would have to tell the student to turn the thing off, and confiscate it. This will happen anyway even though there is a bag. The bag is one more thing to have a problem with, for a student that is already too irresponsible to push a button. You know what’ works better than a bag? Detention.
The “medical” and other exceptions to the phone policy are going to put some students more privileged than others. This is going to cause all kinds of social interaction problems. Have the FCPS idiots who came up with this bag nonsense ever met any kids? Or are these adults too disconnected from child/teen social knowledge to have a clue? Too wrapped up in their own electronic devices to know anything about how their (anybody’s) kid acts? I don’t have any kids, but I was one!
I will never understand why government institutions like schools and prisons don’t try prohibit and regulate the cellular services.
Why not prohibit Verizon from having antennas that provide service to prisons? Similarly, force Verizon to degrade its services to schools during school hours.
How hard is it to tell Verizon, to only provide emergency voice and texts to all devices on sector 3 of tower 12 between 7:45 and 4:15. You could even tell them to turn everything back on for lunchtime and for the 5 minutes between classes.
Radio and cell phone services don’t work the way you imagine. For a variety of reasons, including physics, what you are asking for is impossible.
The solution is having the parents make the kids turn off their god damned phone. Apparently that is also beyond possibility in this universe.
“Radio and cell phone services don’t work the way you imagine”
I have 25 years of experience in developing RF Communications systems. They do work that way. One hundred percent.
But please tell me how cellular companies can’t control their service area or the services they provide? Tell me how they can’t keep people who don’t pay their bills from using their services?
Parenting doesn’t doesn’t work the way you imagine. For a variety of reasons, including overestimated self-assurance, what you are asking for is impossible.
I have no clue how my generation survived 12 years of school without a cell phone, pager or computer. Somehow we made it. If there is an emergency a parent can call the office and have a message relayed or the student can relay his/her emergency to the teacher. I don’t see a need for a pilot, just implement it. My generation had dress codes and rules and if we didn’t abide we received consequences by suspension or detention. I guess I’m just old.
If anyone should ever wonder why being a principal is such a demanding job, they should just look at most of these responses to a policy attempt to solve what is a real, significant problem in our schools and society. Beneath these is an assumption that schools and educators are marginally useful idiots with no understanding of students or technology. Kids are clever, sure, but once a majority of them don’t have ready access to the devices in class, much of the demand spirals down. These systems are working in schools across the country, in spite of the obvious technological loopholes that this savvy group of commentors has identified – imagine that. The others here who are decrying the lack of accountability, parental fortitude, the need for kids to just shut up and do what I say have probably not set foot in a school in decades. As a recently retired principal from a nearby district, I would encourage any of you to volunteer as a classroom substitute for one day – there are definitely schools where most kids do what they are supposed to do, but smartphones in school have contributed greatly to a chaotic situation that exacerbates the worst tendencies among all of us. I like what J. Reynolds says: go for it, we and they will survive, and have some consequences; we’ll be better off.