Panel at Sewickley Public Library discuss student cellphone use in school
A panel of local educators, an advocacy group and a college student believe cellphones are a distraction for young learners.
One of the panelists at a discussion held at the Sewickley Public Library on Aug. 22, state education lead for Pennsylvania Unplugged, Kelly Marsh, cited various statistics, including the fact that students receive more than 230 notifications on their phones on a typical school day.
Pennsylvania Unplugged is a collective of advocacy groups from across the state with a goal of creating a cultural shift with help from parents, caregivers, educators and community members — the shift being to phone-free schools, more free play and independence for kids and low-tech childhoods and teen years, among other related measures.
The panel discussion was moderated by Democratic Rep. Chris Deluzio and assisted by state Sen. Devlin Robinson, R-Bridgeville, whose district includes the Quaker Valley area.
“I think this is the perfect place for it,” Robinson said. “We want to hear from our constituents.”
Both legislators said there is bipartisan support in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., to address cellphone use in schools and move students’ eyes from the small screens to classroom lessons.
Panelists talked about how some schools ban cellphones, use pouches to hold the devices and give them back to students either at the end of a class period or at the end of the day, while others allow students to have their devices in their backpacks or on their person as long as they do not take them out during instruction periods.
Deluzio said there is no consistent approach, district by district, on how to address cellphones in schools.
“That to me shows the need for some leadership at the state level, the federal level to do something,” Deluzio said.
Deluzio’s office launched a survey mid-August asking people if they would support a ban on smartphones in K-12 classrooms.
The congressman said more than 700 people responded in about a week, with about 76% of them in favor of no phones in schools.
Deluzio said he will take the information provided at the panel discussion, as well as the survey and correspondence from the 59 school districts in his congressional district and craft a report for possible future legislation.
“This is a bipartisan problem,” Deluzio said. “It affects kids no matter their parents’ politics. It’s good to see that you can get some Democrats and Republicans working together. If you’re going to craft a policy around classrooms and smartphones, you’ve got to hear from teachers. You’ve got to hear from parents and students matter, too.”
Robinson said he is in the process of drafting a bill with other state leaders that would prohibit student cellphone access from “bell to bell,” meaning the start to the end of the school day.
Robinson also believes school districts should come up with their own enforcement of a smartphone ban, and students would socialize more with their classmates without their phones.
“It’s all about economics,” Robinson said. “Think about how much the average parent is spending to educate their children. Think about how much the community is spending to educate all the children in their school district or across Pennsylvania. It’s in the billions of dollars.
“Do you really want your child to go to school and be distracted all day instead of learning the things that they’re supposed to learn, like reading, writing and arithmetic? These are all things that we’re trying to make sure that we invest in early on so that we have a return on investment in regards to the workforce in the future.”
Robinson said he hopes to introduce the legislation by November.
Duquesne University senior Kim Francisco-Martinez noted that cellphone usage was not really top of mind as teachers and administrators were dealing with the ever-changing restrictions and hybrid/online learning during the pandemic when she was in high school.
“When we were back in person my senior year, it wasn’t the same because I felt like we lacked that face-to-face interaction because it was no longer a thing,” Francisco-Martinez said. “I definitely do think covid really affected things. I think that’s why we have a problem now with kids being so focused and so addicted to their phones. Even as adults now. Not just kids.”
Francisco-Martinez believes kids would be more focused on learning if they did not have access to cellphones during school. She graduated from North Penn High School in 2022.
Francisco-Martinez feels cellphone bans in colleges are not necessary because more responsibility falls on the student and they usually pay for classes.
“If you choose not to pay attention and be on your device, it’s kind of doing yourself a disservice,” she said. “I think that colleges and high schools are two different spectrums. Perhaps, if we were to initiate these bans in high schools, then perhaps when kids get to college, they will have better attention spans and won’t procrastinate or have issues.”
Moon Area High School teacher Erin Ruggiero said her district has a policy that during instructional time phones need to be away and each teacher has discretion on how to make that happen.
Ruggiero said she supports the policy, but also sees a need for some phones for high schoolers.
“Whether we like it or not, they’re here,” she said. “A lot of our high school students depend on those devices for lots of different reasons, whether they might care for somebody at home, or whether they need to be in touch with work. We have a lot of volunteer firefighters, EMS workers, whatever. They do need that access, so it’s complicated but it’s workable.”
Melissa Constantino-Poruben, Avonworth sixth-grade teacher, said her school does not have lockers. Students carry their bookbags at all times and have their cellphones on them at all times. School policy is that the devices are to remain in the bags during class time.
Students are given a warning for the first offense and confiscation or a trip to the school office for a second violation.
Constantino-Poruben said a possible red flag for cellphone use is if a student asks to use the restroom multiple times during one class period. Students are also quick to grab their phones immediately when class is over.
“The minute they step out of my class, they pull the cellphone out of their pocket or their bookbag,” Constantino-Poruben said. “They’re checking things out and it does add a lot of distraction to their day.”
Both Ruggiero and Constantino-Poruben are Pennsylvania State Education Association Western Region members and National Education Association directors.
Sewickley parent Colette Walsh was among the near dozen audience members at the invite-only discussion.
Walsh has a son in Quaker Valley Middle School and two daughters at Oakland Catholic High School. She supports prohibiting students’ cellphone access from bell to bell.
“I don’t think that any of these baby steps that some schools want to do, like doing pouches or in your backpacks, are successful,” Walsh said. “I think it needs to be a bell-to-bell policy for anything to be effective.”
She thanked the panelists and legislators for coming to Sewickley and having the cellphone discussion.
“I am happy that the conversation is happening and people are starting to have awareness about the unintended consequences of implementing cellphone policies that don’t really work,” Walsh said.
“I think for years, schools have left them up to the individual teacher,s thinking they know their students. They know how to run the classroom. … In practice, it falls short because they don’t have the support of the administration behind them. You can’t leave it up to the individual teachers. It’s too much. Teachers need to teach. They don’t need to be policing phones.”
Quaker Valley School Board member Stratton Nash said he would support a ban on smartphones, but that is not the current district policy.
“Ideally, it would be completely non-obstacle so that there’s no competition between educators and social media or any other communication,” Nash said. He was surprised to hear the notification statistic.
“My question is, how many are social media and how many are inquiries or texts from other students or from parents?” Nash said. “It’s a deep issue. … I’m all for doing anything that can help educators become better educators.”
He plans to relay information from the panel discussion to other Quaker Valley board members.
Michael DiVittorio is a TribLive reporter covering general news in Western Pennsylvania, with a penchant for festivals and food. He can be reached at mdivittorio@triblive.com.
