As the principal enters the classroom, she sees the teacher has retreated behind his desk. Twenty-eight 9th and 10th-grade students are quiet, heads down, seemingly engaged, at least at first glance.
The room feels calm, Chromebooks are open and most of the students have the correct assignment pulled up on their devices. But after a few more moments, she sees the real dealnearly every student is cradling their cell phone in their lap, eyes cast down, fingers tapping away on the tiny screens.
Of course, on her school campus, the 5G cell signal is strong enough for students to directly by-pass the district network and sophisticated filters, easily accessing whatever social media, gaming or video platform they want.
The principal realizes that this class is not learning anything of value (like many other classes across her school, she worries), much less the standards these students will all be tested on. Without a firm policy and strong district leadership backing her efforts, there is very little she or this teacher can do to fight this losing battle.
‘Off and Away, All Day
As a superintendent in North Carolina and a public school educator for 29 years, here is what I know about cell phones in schools: if you give any opportunity (however small) for students to pull out those tiny screens, they will exploit this gap, and soon it will become widespread.
I have found this to be especially true in high schools, where overlapping lunches and transitions to flex periods mean there will almost always be some students who are “allowed” to be on their phones throughout the day. My opening story is not a hypothetical, but the reality for many principals across our state.
This situation is made possible by North Carolinas current state-wide policy, which merely restricts access to wireless devices during “instructional time” only. Its like a single weed that can take over an entire gardenand it happens quickly and with little hope of control. This is why in Granville County Public Schools has a districtwide, K12 Off and Away, All Day personal electronic device policy in place.
And yet, we did not always have a bell-to-bell policy throughout the entire district. In the summer of 2023, the Granville County Board of Education voted unanimously to approve a strict new cellphone policy, preventing students in grades K-8 from using cell phones during the school day, and limiting high schoolers use to non-instructional time only.
After the first two years of successful implementation in grades K-8, the board and district leadership clearly saw the need to make some changes. When we surveyed high school teachers at the end of 2024, 76% desired a stricter policy (0% wanted a less-strict policy). This led to an off-and-away, all-day, all-grades policy for ALL personal electronic devices.
Our initial concessions for high school students just weren’t working. It was impossible to clearly enforce our policy, and usage during non-instructional time for some students bled over into class time for others.
We had already seen a strong correlation between the policy and improvements in student achievement and student conduct in middle school, and we wanted the same results for grades 9-12.
Cell phone success
Our bell-to-bell policy is ultimately a win-win for everyone involved. Our teachers were thrilled with the outcomes.
Consider this quote from a high school teacher prior to the policy expansion: Everything’s an emergency. If they’re getting a notification from Snapchat or Game Pigeon, they have to respond right then.
Shortly after the change, the tone of another teacher was decidedly different: Even just that 90 minutes that they’re in my room, they’re talking to each other, small group, class discussion, whatever the case may be, or reading and then there’s not that pressure of having to respond to all of the messages to keep up with whatever’s going on.
The change throughout our entire district has been dramatic and very positive. When surveyed about the effects of the policy at the end of the 2024 academic year (when middle school was bell-to-bell), 89% of middle school teachers agreed that the policy had decreased class disturbances, 80% agreed that it had improved academic performance, and 74% agreed it had improved teacher satisfaction.
School resource officers also found that the policy minimized the amount of in-school altercations. In the words of one SRO, 90 to 95% of the problems that we deal withcomes from this. If you eliminate this in the middle and the high school setting, you eliminate a lot of the issuesthat cause us to have to step in. Since 2023, we have seen a 16% reduction in disciplinary referrals and 25% reduction in long-term suspensions, both of which I largely credit to the restriction of wireless devices in the classroom.
One huge part of the success is our deliberate effort to include our families. One middle school teacher acknowledged this early on, stating, I think it would be nice to communicate with parents the reasons and the purpose, because some parents are offended that their child can’t have their communication device or that they can’t be in contact with their child during class.
This past fall, a member of my superintendent’s parent advisory council shared, I am so grateful the district is doing this; my child doesnt need to be on their phones at school. They need to be learning and socializing in real life with other kids at school. They need a break from all of that stuff on their phones..
Ultimately, a bell-to-bell policy is a statement about what we believe education is for: the educational formation and well-being of students. To the extent that access to wireless devicesincluding during non-instructional timegets in the way of this purpose, they need to be further limited.
It hasnt been easy to implement, but the impact is clear. Based on the overwhelming success of our own bell-to-bell cell phone policy, I highly encourage other superintendents and school board members to further stamp out the weed in the garden to allow learning to grow.
