San Francisco Unified students are back at school this week, after a new state law mandated school districts adopt policies to limit phone use.
So how do schools actually stop kids from getting on their phones? That’s up to them.
At Everett Middle School in the Mission, students stream out of the building and step into the bright afternoon. Some pull phones from their pockets.
Like all San Francisco schools, Everett has had a phone ban for years. It used to lock students' phones in special bags called Yondr pouches — small fabric bags with magnetic locks. But the pouches were expensive and students figured out how to unlock them, community coordinator Ruben Urbina says.
So, now it's an honor system — phones in backpacks.
Urbina says most Everett students follow the rules, but if they take their phone out, a teacher will confiscate it and bring it to the main office for safekeeping.
San Francisco's policy is less restrictive than the one at nearby Oakland Unified, which has a bell-to-bell ban. Some San Francisco schools allow phones at lunch.
Policy-makers hope that less phone time at school will improve students’ attention, wellbeing, and academic outcomes, but positive effects can take years to develop, according to recent research.
An SFUSD representative said that Board President Phil Kim will convene an ad hoc committee on technology, which will include phone usage, later this fall.
