Eagle County School District takes a stronger position on cell phones with new district-wide policy

Following alarming nationwide trends as well as local incidents and concerns with youth cell phone usage, the Eagle County School District will be rolling out a new district-wide cell phone policy at the start of next school year.

The school board unanimously approved the new policy at its Wednesday, June 12, meeting. The policy creates stricter, more uniform rules around cell phone use and more consistent enforcement of device usage.   

“Cell phones are a constant distraction. They’re addictive. They have mental health issues connected to them, and so we needed to standardize things across the district,” said Katie Jarnot, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

In researching cell phone policies, Jarnot relied in part on the work of Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author of a book called “The Anxious Generation.”

“His main thesis is that some of the behavior issues and the mental health issues that we’re seeing in our middle school and high school kids in particular, we like to blame that on the pandemic,” Jarnot said. “His thesis is that, no, it has to do with smartphones, and it all started in 2010 when the smartphone was introduced.”

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“I absolutely agree with his thesis,” Jarnot added. “The pandemic didn’t do anyone any good, but I think our main problem is the smartphone.”

Nine years ago, seeing rising instances of bullying and self-esteem issues in its middle schools, the district created a policy for those buildings, Jarnot said.

For middle schools, this policy is referred to as “away for the day,” which is as it sounds: students are expected to have their phones away for the entire day.

“As we’ve evolved, it has become an issue at the high school. High schools have had a school-based policy, but it hasn’t been enforced very well, and it hasn’t been respected very well, and the consequences were not clearly laid out,” Jarnot said. “When it is district-wide and the consequences are spelled out and everyone is doing the same thing, it has a lot more teeth than if it’s a school policy.”

In addition to seeing the rise in concerns around cell phone use among students for the past decade or so, recent local events led the district to pursue this policy.

At the May 8 Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Philip Qualman said that the district-wide cell phone policy would be coming following the April death of Jackson Davis, a ninth grader at Eagle Valley High School, following an altercation at Second Street Park in Gypsum. The incident involved multiple teens and was filmed and circulated. One suspect, Nefi Ezequiel Armijo Hernandez, faces a first-degree murder charge, which carries a life sentence if convicted. Armijo Hernandez’s lawyers are seeking to move his case back to juvenile court in a reverse transfer hearing scheduled for October. Another juvenile faces an array of charges related to the incident after being taken into custody on May 3.

“Police are investigating the role that cell phones or social media played in Jackson’s murder. I don’t know what they’re going to find there, but I think there will be connections,” Qualman said in May. “I know for certain that cell phones and social media have played an enormous role in the aftermath of what happened in the last two weeks, including sharing a disturbing video of his murder, spreading rumors, and increasing fear and anxiety in our community.”

Qualman said that while the schools have been battling the impacts of social media and cell phones for years “this incident, along with recent research on this subject, compel us to take a stronger position.”

The superintendent said that there have been “disturbing videos” distributed among students as young as elementary school about “bullying, drug and alcohol abuse, fights, sexual content, and now a murder.”

“Parents, I’m asking you that we need your support on this one,” Qualman said. “Even though it means you won’t have instant communication with your child during the school day, we’ve gone thousands of years without instant communication with our kids, and I think we’ll be OK.”

The policy was also requested by the Eagle County Education Association in negotiations this year as well as by teachers and administrators in buildings including elementary schools, Jarnot reported.

What the policy entails

Under the new district-wide K-12 cell phone policy, elementary and middle schools will stay under an “away for the day,” cell phone policy, that mirrors the policy that’s been executed at the middle schools for the last nine years. The policy holds that “Cell phones and electronic devices including smart watches and tablets shall be TURNED OFF when the morning bell rings and not turned back on until dismissal.”

High schools will follow an “away for the class” policy.

“Cell phones and electronic devices, including smartwatches and tablets, shall be TURNED OFF when class begins and not turned back on until the class ends,” reads the policy.

Other electronic devices not allowed in the classroom will include AirPods, headphones, smartwatches and tablets — unless the teacher deems them essential to the lesson.

Jarnot added that she has asked all high schools to have a “caddy” in each classroom where students can drop off their devices at the start of class.

For all schools, the policy also has an acceptable use clause, laying out what is and isn’t “acceptable use.”

“For instance, we have had multiple instances in which a student is filming a fight and until this time, there has not been any real disciplinary procedure for using your cell phone to film something inappropriate and then distribute it,” Jarnot said, adding that there is no state law or consequence around filming and distributing a violent act.

“But we can put that in our policy,” Jarnot said.

Defined unacceptable uses in the policy include:

• Using devices to record (video or audio) of students and staff without permission
• Using devices to take photos of students and staff without permission
• Using devices for academic dishonesty or cheating
• Using devices in a disruptive manner (in academic environments as well as school activities and functions)
• Using devices to “send, receive or possess text or e-mail messages reasonably interpreted as indecent or sexually suggestive while at school, on school transportation or at a school-related function.”
• Using devices to threaten, harass, intimidate or bully
• Departing a class to active or operate devices

Clear enforcement

The district-wide policy creates a hard line for enforcement and lays out clear consequences for all students.

The cell phone policy lays out violations for the first three offenses of the rules outlined.

On the first offense, the teacher confiscates the device, gives it to the office and the student can retrieve it at the end of the day. On the second offense, after the device is confiscated and given to the office, parents will be notified and have to permit the school to release the phone to the student at the end of the day. On the third offense, students will be required to turn in their device to the office at the beginning of every day and will only be allowed to pick it up at the end of each day.

“If there are offenses beyond that, then that starts to fall under our general disciplinary policy in terms of (being) ‘habitually disruptive,'” Jarnot said.

In discussing the policy on Wednesday, the school board members expressed their support for the new rules and consequences. Board member, and former middle school principal, Harry McQueeney said it was a “great first step,” requesting that the board review how it went at the end of next year, including receiving feedback from students.

While Jarnot agreed that the policy could evolve in future years, she expects this first step will go a long way.

“One of the big pieces in the research is that it’s constant. There’s no break from it. And so I think giving kids that break during the day is just huge,” Jarnot said.