When Marshall County middle and high school students arrived back at school on August 7, they immediately had to lock their phones away for the duration of the school day. The North Mississippi school district updated its cell phone policy for this school year to make its middle schools and high schools phone-free during instruction hours.
It could be a preview of the kind of cell phone restrictions state leaders hope to implement in all of Mississippi’s public schools during next year’s legislative session.
“We just want to get our kids re-engaged in school life where they’re engaged not only in their lessons but able to have conversations with each other, as opposed to spending their days with their heads down looking at their cell phones,” Marshall County Superintendent Carrie Skelton told the Mississippi Free Press on July 26.
The district has implemented the Yondr system, requiring each student to store their phone in an assigned pouch that will be locked upon entry at school. The pouches remain in the student’s possession throughout the day and can be unlocked by students at special stations once the school day ends. In an emergency, students can go to the school office or certain school officials to unlock the pouch. Students are responsible for bringing the pouch to and from school each day and keeping it in good condition.
“We’re not confiscating their phones, because that is like taking away their arm or something,” Skelton said. “They still have possession of (the phone), they just can’t use it.”
There are still consequences for violations. If a student has their phone and it’s not in the Yondr pouch, it will be confiscated and parents must pick it up from school during school hours. If there’s a repeat violation, the student will be assigned in-school suspension. Habitual offenders will go before a discipline committee.
“We’re hoping we never get to that point because one of the things that I did learn through my research from various school districts was that kids were opposed to it at first, but then they started realizing that, okay, this isn’t such a bad thing, I actually have a life outside of what’s going on on my cell phone,” Skelton said.
Nearly all U.S. teenagers ages 12-17 have access to a smartphone. Teachers and school officials across the country say the phones are causing problems in the classroom. Pew Research Center surveyed public K-12 teachers in the fall of 2023 and found that 72% of high school teachers, a third of middle school teachers, and 6% of elementary school teachers identified cell phones as a major distraction for students.
Pew research also found that 82% of teachers surveyed said their schools had policies regarding cell phone use in schools, but six in ten high school teachers surveyed said those were difficult to enforce. Skelton agreed.
”We had the zero cell phone at school policy. We had the only in a specific school zone policy,” Skelton said. “But policing that was such a huge effort, and it took up so much time that took away from classroom instruction and administrators being able to do their jobs.”
Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann praised Marshall County Schools for moving to lock up cell phones in a July 9 Facebook post. He said the Legislature will address cell phones in schools when it reconvenes next year.
“Forward-thinking move by Marshall County schools! Research shows when students are engaged in learning, they are more likely to be physically and mentally healthy, show up for class, and be successful in the future,” Hosemann said in the post. “In the 2025 Session, we’ll be pushing for statewide cellphone restrictions in our public school classrooms.”
Skelton said that she could not even provide accurate data to the school board on cell phone infractions during the last school year because of the burden enforcement placed on district officials.
“Honestly, it got to the point I don’t even think my administrators were actually keeping accurate data because it had become such a huge problem,” she said. “My principals and the teachers that I’ve spoken to about it are very excited. They they all feel like we’re giving them the power back over being able to control what’s going on in their classroom.”
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report included a study that found that it can take students up to 20 minutes to refocus on what they were learning after a distraction. Another study found that removing smartphones from schools in Belgium, Spain and the United States improved learning outcomes—especially for students who were not performing as well as their peers.
Skelton believes that eliminating phone use during the day will result in improved outcomes for Marshall County students. The district earned a “C” rating on the Statewide Accountability System for the 2022-23 school year with less than 31% of the district’s students achieving Proficient or Advanced on the statewide MAAP English or math assessments. Less than 40% of students met performance benchmarks on the ACT.
Marshall County is the first district in the state to adopt the Yondr system and paid around $53,000.
In the era of school shootings, though, cell phones have proven to be life-saving tools for some students, driving some opposition from parents and others to school cell phone bans across the country.
“If we can get the gains from it that we’re expected to get in students being able to be engaged in their instruction, helping them learn to have social interaction skills again, and helping them with mental health, $53,000 is nothing compared to what we can give those kids,” Skelton said.
Skelton said that one of the major concerns she has heard is that students will not be able to use their phones in the event of a school emergency. She is reiterating to families that the district has a crisis management plan and a campus police force.
“I hope people will trust us with that,” she said. “This is to make things better for them, not to punish them from being able to use their cell phone to check Snapchat or whatever other platform they look at during their class time or during their school day.”
