At a time when technology permeates virtually every facet of our lives, and its use can be both a help and a hinderance in the classroom, Cascade High School’s policies regarding cell phone use have seemed to strike a reasonable balance between allowing for the enhancement of the campus experience that phones can facilitate and ensuring that students are engaged during class time. CHS policy permits students “to use phones during passing time, lunch, and before and after school,” while also requiring that “all students put their cell phones/electronic devices away (in backpacks or designated area in the classroom) during instructional time,” and not “to use phones in hallways during instructional time.”
That equilibrium, however, is under threat from a new policy. Beginning this school year, in “an attempt to teach timeliness,” students tardy for any class “with[out] [sic] a valid excuse . . . will be expected to turn over their cell phone to their teacher or office staff” for the remainder of the day. While tardiness is unquestionably a challenge and frustration for CHS, the new policy’s punishment for it is neither relational nor proportional to the offense - not to mention that it places an onerous burden upon CHS staff. Should teachers and staff really be charged with the requisitioning from students, who will be unlikely to cheerily cooperate, devices that cost up to a thousand dollars?
I agree with the administration that the issue of tardiness should be addressed. My disagreement is with the manner.
The issue of phones in school is, of course, controversial in general. On one end of the debate are those - somewhat ironically, mostly parents - who argue that students should not even be compulsed to put their phones away during class time; on the other end are those who advocate for phone-free schools - mostly teachers and mental health advocates. While there are compelling merits, though maybe not evenly distributed, on both sides of the issue, I am calling attention here only to the new policy regarding tardiness, which is tangentially and mistakenly connected to phones.
Tardiness is a real problem at many high schools across the country. At CHS, the administration reports that “[r]oughly 33% of our student body had 12 tardies or more last year and 25% of our student body had 18 or more tardies.” The offense not only causes distractions in the classroom but has negative consequences for academic performance. Conversely, attending to details like punctuality leads to greater long and short-term success in the classroom and in life.
To be effective, solutions to the problem must address the root causes in a positive, proactive manner rather than with hackneyed, reactive penalties.
To be effective, solutions to the problem must address the root causes in a positive, proactive manner rather than with hackneyed, reactive penalties. Confiscating a teen’s phone is a common reflexive response to misconduct. In fact, the Pew Research Center survey found that 65 percent of parents have taken away cell phones from their teens as punishment. The same survey also finds that the punishment did not lead to a change in behavior. Unfortunately, CHS has adopted this negative retributive approach.
The school states that “[t]he mornings are our higher number of tardies.” Rather than phone usage, arriving at school late most often stems from factors like transportation difficulties, family/household responsibilities, poor time management/discipline, or simply oversleeping. Arbitrarily impounding a student’s phone, and thereby taking away one’s primary means of communication and access to information, will no more remedy morning tardiness than would confiscating a student’s shoes for being late. The punishment simply does not fit the “crime.”
Positive reinforcement of on-time or early arrivals will reap greater results in curbing tardiness. In addition to CHS’s year-end recognition of low or no tardies for students to stiffen CHS’s expectation of punctuality, the school might follow the lead of other high schools and have its teachers stand outside of their classrooms prior to the bell to help monitor hallway activity and welcome on-time students before closing their doors and beginning teaching promptly. A noted side-effect of such a practice is the improvement of teacher-student relationships.
Other schools play music during the last few moments before the first period and passing time to indicate that time is running out. Red Bluff High School in Northern California, for example, plays the Mission Impossible theme song during the last 45 seconds of its passing periods. The school’s tardiness dropped by 36% within a week of doing so and 49% within a month.
Some others place students with high on-time attendance into a weekly drawing to receive gift cards to local stores. Those who keep their attendance and on-time rates up all semester have a chance at larger prizes such as Airpods or tablets.
CHS ought to consider adopting, instead of its counterproductive phone confiscation policy for tardiness, one or more of the foregoing, or devise its own judicious, proactive solution. As Red Bluff High School proved, the mission is possible, and solutions are only limited by our imaginations.
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