Is it safer for students to have access to their phones during a school lockdown or not?
I just released a podcast episode that addresses this question, and coincidentally just last week, I hosted some girlfriends, one of whom serves on our school board, who shared with me that a mother had recently reached out with concerns about phone access during potential school emergencies. The mother expressed that she wanted her child to have a way to contact her directly.
My school board friend, who incidentally advocates for phones away for the day at school, asked me to explain why not allowing them might actually enhance safety.
As I started to tell her the many reasons, I could feel my heart start pounding because this is such an emotional topic for me. I feel the importance so deeply. School safety is critical, along with all the other reasons that phones need to be locked away during school hours.
I share some quotes here from my conversations that are featured in yesterday’s 20-minute Screenagers Podcast, Why School Safety Experts Want Phone Bans.
This includes a police officer, an elementary school principal, a superintendent, and a school safety expert who consults with schools across the country.
But please do listen to the 20-minute podcast — it really is one of my favorite episodes. Listen Here: Apple Podcasts // Shopify // YouTube // Website
Before I share quotes about why "Away for the Day" phone and smartwatch policies are critical for the safety of our students, our teachers, and everyone on school grounds, I want to share some survey results.
While speaking at a school district on the East Coast recently, I asked parents to participate in an anonymous survey. One of the questions asked was whether they believed students were safer during a school lockdown if they had access to their phones or not.
I was pleased to see that the overwhelming majority of elementary and middle school parents knew that students are safer without phones or smartwatches during school hours.
Yet slightly over 30% of parents of high school students said that having phones was the safest choice.
I lead with this because it is really important that we all start educating others on what is actually best practices.
(By the way, we need a nationally representative survey to be done on that question so that we can see how much work needs to be done to educate parents, teachers, and others about this topic.)
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Learn more about showing our movies in your school or community!
“One of the biggest arguments parents have is that kids should have access to phones, especially high school, during the day in the event of an emergency and a security breach. And, we tell them, no, the first thing we want to have is first responders in the building as soon as possible."
"We had a real-time emergency …We went into lockdown, and moments after that, students started communicating with their parents, texting, and calling from their cell phones. As a result, our first responders were arriving at the school, and we had parents lined up in our driveway, and the first responders literally couldn't get their vehicles to our school. The driveway was backed up all the way to the street."
“I do not like children having access to their phones directly in school because of the safety aspect of it. You can't get away from the information or the misinformation that gets presented. The slightest little rumor of a threat or the slightest statement that gets made, which isn’t investigated, leaves the school quicker than the police even get notification or before staff gets notified.”
“Even recently, we've experienced things like where we're investigating one incident or one potential threat. Something else is being relayed that we weren't even aware of through social media. And it's leaving the school before our school resource officers were even aware that it had occurred.”
"When I was a principal at a high school, we had a lockdown occur one time, and because all of the students got on their phones immediately, the network of the school crashed, and then none of our phones worked.”
“I am not a proponent of cell phones, especially during an emergency situation."
"One of the biggest arguments parents have is that kids should have access to phones, especially high school, during the day in the event of an emergency and a security breach. And, we tell them, no, the first thing we want to have is first responders in the building as soon as possible. We have to speed up our responses to emergencies, not slow them down."
"I would like to see a policy where there's no phones allowed, bell to bell. Period. Put in the lockers or some other kind of system where there's accountability that those kids can't access them."
Learn more about showing our movies in your school or community!
Join Screenagers filmmaker Delaney Ruston MD for our latest Podcast
Learn more about our Screen-Free Sleep campaign at the website!
Our movie made for parents and educators of younger kids
Join Screenagers filmmaker Delaney Ruston MD for our latest Podcast
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Is it safer for students to have access to their phones during a school lockdown or not?
I just released a podcast episode that addresses this question, and coincidentally just last week, I hosted some girlfriends, one of whom serves on our school board, who shared with me that a mother had recently reached out with concerns about phone access during potential school emergencies. The mother expressed that she wanted her child to have a way to contact her directly.
My school board friend, who incidentally advocates for phones away for the day at school, asked me to explain why not allowing them might actually enhance safety.
As I started to tell her the many reasons, I could feel my heart start pounding because this is such an emotional topic for me. I feel the importance so deeply. School safety is critical, along with all the other reasons that phones need to be locked away during school hours.
I share some quotes here from my conversations that are featured in yesterday’s 20-minute Screenagers Podcast, Why School Safety Experts Want Phone Bans.
This includes a police officer, an elementary school principal, a superintendent, and a school safety expert who consults with schools across the country.
But please do listen to the 20-minute podcast — it really is one of my favorite episodes. Listen Here: Apple Podcasts // Shopify // YouTube // Website
Before I share quotes about why "Away for the Day" phone and smartwatch policies are critical for the safety of our students, our teachers, and everyone on school grounds, I want to share some survey results.
While speaking at a school district on the East Coast recently, I asked parents to participate in an anonymous survey. One of the questions asked was whether they believed students were safer during a school lockdown if they had access to their phones or not.
I was pleased to see that the overwhelming majority of elementary and middle school parents knew that students are safer without phones or smartwatches during school hours.
Yet slightly over 30% of parents of high school students said that having phones was the safest choice.
I lead with this because it is really important that we all start educating others on what is actually best practices.
(By the way, we need a nationally representative survey to be done on that question so that we can see how much work needs to be done to educate parents, teachers, and others about this topic.)
“One of the biggest arguments parents have is that kids should have access to phones, especially high school, during the day in the event of an emergency and a security breach. And, we tell them, no, the first thing we want to have is first responders in the building as soon as possible."
"We had a real-time emergency …We went into lockdown, and moments after that, students started communicating with their parents, texting, and calling from their cell phones. As a result, our first responders were arriving at the school, and we had parents lined up in our driveway, and the first responders literally couldn't get their vehicles to our school. The driveway was backed up all the way to the street."
“I do not like children having access to their phones directly in school because of the safety aspect of it. You can't get away from the information or the misinformation that gets presented. The slightest little rumor of a threat or the slightest statement that gets made, which isn’t investigated, leaves the school quicker than the police even get notification or before staff gets notified.”
“Even recently, we've experienced things like where we're investigating one incident or one potential threat. Something else is being relayed that we weren't even aware of through social media. And it's leaving the school before our school resource officers were even aware that it had occurred.”
"When I was a principal at a high school, we had a lockdown occur one time, and because all of the students got on their phones immediately, the network of the school crashed, and then none of our phones worked.”
“I am not a proponent of cell phones, especially during an emergency situation."
"One of the biggest arguments parents have is that kids should have access to phones, especially high school, during the day in the event of an emergency and a security breach. And, we tell them, no, the first thing we want to have is first responders in the building as soon as possible. We have to speed up our responses to emergencies, not slow them down."
"I would like to see a policy where there's no phones allowed, bell to bell. Period. Put in the lockers or some other kind of system where there's accountability that those kids can't access them."
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Is it safer for students to have access to their phones during a school lockdown or not?
I just released a podcast episode that addresses this question, and coincidentally just last week, I hosted some girlfriends, one of whom serves on our school board, who shared with me that a mother had recently reached out with concerns about phone access during potential school emergencies. The mother expressed that she wanted her child to have a way to contact her directly.
My school board friend, who incidentally advocates for phones away for the day at school, asked me to explain why not allowing them might actually enhance safety.
As I started to tell her the many reasons, I could feel my heart start pounding because this is such an emotional topic for me. I feel the importance so deeply. School safety is critical, along with all the other reasons that phones need to be locked away during school hours.
I share some quotes here from my conversations that are featured in yesterday’s 20-minute Screenagers Podcast, Why School Safety Experts Want Phone Bans.
This includes a police officer, an elementary school principal, a superintendent, and a school safety expert who consults with schools across the country.
But please do listen to the 20-minute podcast — it really is one of my favorite episodes. Listen Here: Apple Podcasts // Shopify // YouTube // Website
Before I share quotes about why "Away for the Day" phone and smartwatch policies are critical for the safety of our students, our teachers, and everyone on school grounds, I want to share some survey results.
While speaking at a school district on the East Coast recently, I asked parents to participate in an anonymous survey. One of the questions asked was whether they believed students were safer during a school lockdown if they had access to their phones or not.
I was pleased to see that the overwhelming majority of elementary and middle school parents knew that students are safer without phones or smartwatches during school hours.
Yet slightly over 30% of parents of high school students said that having phones was the safest choice.
I lead with this because it is really important that we all start educating others on what is actually best practices.
(By the way, we need a nationally representative survey to be done on that question so that we can see how much work needs to be done to educate parents, teachers, and others about this topic.)
This year, millions of students are experiencing a major shift: school days without phones, smartwatches, or other personal devices. Today we explore the wins, hurdles, and solutions helping schools succeed. We also share our resources that you can use to support technology policy changes in your schools.
READ MORE >
I recently sat down with middle school principal Zach at his school in Washington State. We talked about the challenges Zach and his team faced in his early years as principal when students used phones during school, and how he brought about a powerful transformation by having phones and smartwatches put away in locked pouches for the whole school day. In today’s blog, to raise awareness of the challenges, I share five real examples from Zach of the troubling ways students use phones at school to be unkind.
READ MORE >
It is with great pleasure that I share with you today a piece that Lisa Tabb and I did for Jonathan Haidt's (Author of The Anxious Generation) and researcher Zack Rausch's Substack blog — After Babel. In it, we discuss the rise in use of smartwatches in elementary schools and the problems they pose. There is a real cost to arming (pun intended) our kids with these devices and sending them to school. Now is the time to stop and fully address this topic and ensure that schools become smartwatch and phone-free.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
