Inside a crowded Franklin Middle School cafeteria, Kayla Greenrod conducted an informal poll of her fellow parents.
“If we could have a show of hands, who would be for allowing students to keep their phones on their person, but off?” she asked those who had convened for a forum on how the district should implement the new statewide ban on personal electronic devices in schools.
About three-quarters of the parents’ hands – including Greenrod’s – shot up.
Several justified their preference by raising worst-case scenarios.
“I wouldn’t want just one person or one staff member to be able to decide whether my kid is able to crawl out of a window because somebody has opened fire,” said Victoria Cronin, the mother of four children in the school district.
Others had logistical concerns about the prospect of their children being separated from their devices. Many Franklin students work jobs or care for siblings after school and communicate about their responsibilities during the day.
The question posed by Greenrod, the mother of two Franklin high schoolers and the secretary in the middle school’s main office, struck at the heart of the dilemma facing school leaders across the state as the school year gets underway over the next two weeks.
The new law directs schools to bar students from using personal communication devices – phones, but also arguably laptops, tablets, and smartwatches – throughout the school day, but it doesn’t tell them how to do so.
The options vary widely: Concord’s and Pembroke’s middle schools, which had implemented bans prior to the new law, require students to keep their phones in lockers. Other schools have resorted to buying containment devices, like magnetic pouches and lockboxes.
Experts say the choice is far from trivial and could spell the difference between an ironclad ban and one that is widely flouted.
“The ‘you can have your phone on you, but you can’t use it’ has been the policy of many, many schools for the last five to 10 years,” said Lynn Lyons, a Concord-based therapist with expertise working with families and schools on anxiety, including issues related to technology use.”When you talk to teachers about that, they don’t want to be the enforcers, and it’s not reasonable or possible for the educators to enforce that.”
“If that worked, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in,” she said. “To say you can have your phone on you, but you can’t use your phone doesn’t work.”
Still, pushed by parents like those in Franklin and by the expense and logistical hurdles of more aggressive methods, it is the approach many schools are taking.
Both high schools in Pembroke and Hopkinton will start the year by allowing students to carry – but not use – their devices, school board members and administrators have decided in recent weeks. Franklin’s board will make a final decision on its policy next week.
The Concord Monitor has reached out to every high school, middle school, and K-8 principal in our coverage area about their policies and procedures and will publish a list of school-specific policies in the coming days.
In Franklin, many parents who wanted their children to be able to carry their phones did not outwardly oppose the new law, but they framed compliance as a matter of parental responsibility that should fall upon them rather than the schools.
This is about “making the parent learn how to parent,” Greenrod said. “I think a lot of things have changed, and some of them just don’t know how to parent the right way, and this is going to put that on them and not the teachers.”
Emphasizing how much they wanted to lead on enforcing the law, Greenrod and others said they would welcome a phone call and a request to pick up their child’s device during the day if he or she broke the new rules.
“Then I get the choice to have that talk with my child at home, which is what we should be doing,” she said.
While Greenrod was certainly in the majority at the community forum in Franklin, some parents pushed back.
Tim Francis, the father of two high school students, said his background in public safety has taught him that phones sometimes cause more harm than good in the event of an emergency.
“One of the great challenges with cell phones is that not always the right information is there,” he said.
The most vehement opposition to the “phones in your pocket” approach came from Adam Heath, who drew on his experiences navigating a lazy eye as a Franklin student. His daughter, who attends Winnisquam Regional Middle School through a split custody arrangement, also has a lazy eye.
“The day that she gets recorded is the day when Winnisquam’s probably not going to want me as a parent,” he said. “And I want you to understand: Any one of your kids can get recorded.”
He implored other parents to get behind a strict ban.
“We have an opportunity as a school system and a city to really go in a direction that I really think we have been needing to as a society,” Heath said. “We need to buy into this as parents. … Take the tool away, cut and dry.”
