Op-ed: Manassas schools should be phone-free

Op-ed by City Council candidate Stephen Kent via InsideNova.com

Schools must be a place where kids feel free to learn. This week, Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order directing the Virginia Department of Education to craft guidance for localities on having phone-free learning environments.

Distraction has become a crisis in modern life. Adults know it’s a problem in their workplaces, and kids are thumbing through their social media feeds in the classroom instead of engaging with educators.

Many Virginia school districts are ahead of Richmond on this. Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Winchester are already moving to reclaim their classrooms from distraction, and Manassas City Public Schools needs to get in the game on developing more serious, uniform policies regarding phone use in schools.

Current policy within the city school system has been limited to a Student Code of Conduct, which largely permits phones during the school day as long as they are silenced, out of sight and not being used to harass others. Students are incentivized to be discreet with their phones, not to turn them off.

Administrators can confiscate devices, but why bother?

Stories of students attacking teachers who attempt confiscation appear in the news regularly, and many teachers rightly opt out of the potential conflict. Between everything else that is laid at the feet of teachers, this should not be their job.

Last month, the Manassas School Board proposed a “clarification” to the code of conduct regarding phones, an unserious approach that does not act on the evidence of how smartphones are eroding educational outcomes and producing anxiety in students. Everyone knows it is not a functional policy.

The consequences of distraction are serious. Manassas recently saw Metz Middle School report a dismal 30% pass rate for seventh- and eighth-grade math students. All subjects saw declines except for geometry. Along with performance in English, chronic absenteeism worsened in the 2022-23 school year.

Truant students loiter in Manassas shops and disturb both staff and patrons during school hours. It has led to conflicts, sometimes involving police, who try their best to get students back to school with limited time and officers.

There’s a solution. We could have phone-free schools. It would help with student performance, mental health outcomes and attendance. Manassas should go the route of Fairfax and schools in 41 states who are using Yondr pouches for their schools.

Yondr costs $25.50 per student and uses a mag-seal technology to lock cell phones in a neoprene pouch assigned to each student. Students seal their pouches upon arrival in front of welcoming administrators, and before the final bell, an unlocking device is placed by the exit doors. Students swipe their bags like you would a Metro card, and go home.

Yondr’s partner schools have seen on average a 14.9% increase in the probability of passing grades for academic courses in grades six through 12. For 11th- and 12th-graders, it’s a 38% increase. Disciplinary referrals drop by almost half when phones are sealed upon entry to school.

Students at these schools are being shown to ditch class less. Knowing they can’t unseal their phone until the final bell and knowing their friends in class won’t be texting them back during the day, kids go to school for facetime with their friends.

Osbourn High in Manassas was the first school in Northern Virginia to install weapon detection devices at its entrances in 2023. The four-year contract with Evolv costs $104,000 annually as an investment in student safety. What about a direct investment in academic performance?

For less than the cost of one year on the Evolv contract, Manassas could have Yondr pouches and onboarding support for grades seven through 12. We could rededicate classrooms and school hallways to learning.

With Evolv checkpoints already established at Osbourn, the school is positioned for success in adding Yondr pouches to the mix when students arrive and funnel into school. Students won't love it at first, but our role as adults is to do the hard things, the things that are best for them.

Manassas city schools are not performing at the level our residents expect. It drives families out of this city and discourages new ones from moving here. We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect better results. Manassas must get with the times, acknowledge the growing body of evidence about phones’ effect on education and restore focus in our city schools.