SAN ANTONIO – Educators struggle to teach and hold students’ attention while they hold cellphones in their hands during class time.
Mark Lopez, principal at Garcia Middle School in the Northside Independent School District, said some guidelines are helping his students keep their focus.
“Our official guideline is we have students put phones away at 8:30 a.m., and they don’t come back out until 3:55 [p.m.]. There’s intricacies in between there,” he said.
Lopez said teachers can permit students to use their phones for educational purposes.
The overall goal is to teach kids how to use cellphones as a tool.
“In the end, the goal is to teach kids the proper way to use technology,” Lopez said.
A break in the rule means a warning, followed by administrative action like taking the child’s cellphone away for the day.
Lopez said limiting cellphone use in school has helped reduce conflicts that usually start on social media.
“We tracked our discipline, academic and attendance data before we instituted those guidelines. And after, we did see a tremendous increase in attendance and academics and an improvement in attendance,” Lopez said.
Part of the process is also helping them teach kids positive social skills. The campus introduced classic board games as a way to help.
Kimberly Ridgley, assistant superintendent for Whole Child Development at NISD, said campuses can make decisions about cellphone use that best fit their communities.
“When used appropriately, it can be used as a tool,” she said. “Our job as educators is to teach kids boundaries around cellphone use. That begins with us modeling that as well.”
Ridgley said social media’s impact can be detrimental to youths’ health. “What’s posted is the highlight reel. If we are constantly faced with the highlight reel of other people’s lives, we start thinking our lives are less than,” she said.
The topic of cellphone use in the classroom will need to include school staff, families, and students, and it is necessary, Ridgley said.