Some Seattle schools to lockup students’ cellphones, boost classroom engagement

SEATTLE — Some Seattle Public Schools are cutting back on screen time as kids return to the classroom.

On Thursday, students at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School picked up new Yondr pouches, which are secure bags for them to lock their phones away for the day.

“When you go in, you have to have it locked up and then when you walk out of the school, you can unlock it,” 8th grader Malcolm explained.

When a student enters school, their phone will be put into an individual canvas bag that requires an unlocking base to reopen. It will then be given back to the student, but they won’t be able to use their phone until the bag is unlocked at the end of the day.

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The cellphone lock bags are meant to create better connections between students without smartphones or smart watches.

“It’ll help me actually like stay with my friends more because I’ll actually be able to talk to them and just won’t be on their phones as much,” Malcolm added.

The school says teachers can no longer compete with phones in the classroom. They said the distractions are nonstop on social media.

“Gotta control screen time. Everyone’s on their screens,” said parent Percy Padua.

Parents that KIRO 7 spoke to are on board with the new approach to reducing screen time.

“I mean just to focus on school, to focus on the teachers and learning right. I mean they’re distracted a lot so I think it’s helpful to not have those things,” Padua added.

Some students felt like this was a rash decision that could’ve used more reinforcement rather than action.

“I don’t like it,” 8th grader Adriana added. “Especially at lunch like I don’t know. I just wanna be on my phone at lunch.”

Some students believe there wasn’t an issue with classroom engagement to begin with. They feel like phasing out phones invites other types of distractions.

“It’s not something distracting us like if we’re like on a break,” Ariana explained.

“I feel if they like this and people are gonna try to talk to their friends more like even more distracting and during class,” said 8th grader Luke.

Hamilton International Middle School will also be testing out these new pouches.

According to the company that makes the pouches, Yondr, one million students use the pouches each school day, including one other school in Washington state.

The company said the schools using its pouches report:

• 83% increase in student engagement in the classroom
• 74% improvement in student behavior
• 65% increase in academic performance.

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