PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A key item on many back-to-school checklists is finding out if students are allowed to use cell phones in school — especially in Philadelphia, where there is no blanket policy.
While lawmakers in Harrisburg debate a statewide bell-to-bell ban on cell phones in schools, the School District of Philadelphia has left mobile phone policy to the discretion of individual principals.
At the K-8 James Rhoads School in the city’s Mill Creek neighborhood, Principal Megan Wapner said it was important for children to have their cell phones.
“We live in a world where parents want to track their kids, make sure that they’re getting to and from school,” she said, “and so we want them to have it. We just don’t want it to be a distraction.”
Rhoads is beginning its fourth year requiring students to carry their phones in Yondr pouches that are unlocked at the end of the day. Wapner said the policy has made a difference — and the first place you see that is in the cafeteria.
“They’re making new friends. They’re sitting at different tables. When they had phones, it didn’t matter what table they were at because they weren’t interacting.”
West Philadelphia High School Principal Marla Travis shows the classroom phone boxes that students must store their phones inside during each period.Mike DeNardo/KYW Newsradio
At West Philadelphia High School, Principal Marla Travis says students objected to that practice.
“They did not like the pouches because they could not access the phone until the end of the day,” she said.
While her students are now free to use their phones between classes, since last year, they’ve been required to store their phone in a special box in each classroom.
“Each classroom they attend, which is four classrooms a day, they have these phone boxes,” explained climate manager Eugene Lett. “They put it in there and they get it right back at the end of the class period.”
He said students have been communicating and engaging in lessons more since the boxes were introduced, while Travis said parents appreciate the system because the children have access to their phones during the day.
