This year the school district implemented new policies like no tech days to reduce the use of technology, adding to last year’s policy eliminating the use of personal electronics during the school day. With these no tech days, all teachers at Vallivue High School will have at least one day during the week where students will not use Chromebooks. This new policy is meant to help students and teachers.
Mrs. Dean, principal at Vallivue High, stated that they are trying to have the students follow the same policy they enforced last year with the phones. They enforced the phone ban because they saw a difference in behaviors last year, mostly because of physical violence and aggression during school. After they enforced the phone ban, they saw fights decrease at school. The school community that changed for the better, and students were able to communicate better with one another, so that policy will stay in effect district wide.
The Chromebook policy is a district initiative. It worked well at some of the middle schools last year, specifically Sage Valley, so they wanted to test it out across the district. Last year, the district “A Team” (a group of leaders at the district level) did walkthroughs in buildings all over the district. They saw students misusing the Chromebooks and playing games that they weren’t supposed to play, like Fortnite, during instructional time. So, because of that, there was a need to try something different and reduce Chromebook use.
Currently, there is a committee that is working to address the policy and make it more applicable for elementary, middle, and high school students, depending on how teachers are using it. When it was left for teachers to do what they wanted in their classrooms about the phones, they fought really hard about phones with students. It was described as an unwinnable battle. So after that, teachers wouldn’t take phones away during class because they weren’t able to use them, so it was just a use of technology the students had.
The interesting part about this cell phone policy is that it is actually science driven. There’s data showing that overusing cell phones is increasing anxiety and depression levels in teenage girls, higher than any other group over the last ten years, and it is due to cellphones and due to more importantly, social media.
At VHS, they also found out that when they had fights in the building, it was driven by communicating through the cell phone, whether texting or through social media. This policy of phones isn’t going anywhere. Now adding the no tech days, the district wants to see more engaging activities in the classroom focused on WICOR. It’s overall a win if students progress academically and develop better life skills.
