A district-wide ban on smartphones in the Shawnee Mission School District will be considered as part of the district’s five-year strategic plan, administrators said Monday.
The idea is listed under the technology category of the plan, which was presented to the board at its regular meeting. The item concerned creating a development guide to age-appropriate use of technology including “personal devices.”
Although it did not specify smartphones, incoming superintendent Michael Schumacher acknowledged a ban on cell phones during school hours would be first on the list of things to consider as the school year begins in August.
Schumacher also stressed that more work needs to be done and feedback should be sought from the community.
“Our community certainly is asking for it,” Schumacher said. “We need to have that discussion. We need to listen about this.”
Board President Mary Sinclair acknowledged the process would be deliberate.
“It’s a considerable challenge for all of us to balance the need for urgency and move forward with sound policy and a solid review of the information that’s available. It’s a tough balance,” she said.
“I appreciate the sense of urgency but I also want to have a responsible process so that we move forward and practice sound policy,” she added.
Some parents have been pleading for cellphone restrictions
It’s too early to tell how the district may implement such a ban or when it could be adopted.
The strategic plan only guarantees that it will be discussed. But some speakers at the public comment portion of Monday’s meeting suggested that students put phones in a secure location — such as a phone locker — before the first bell and collect them after school is out.
Some speakers said they supported banning phones during school hours in all grades.
Smartphone bans have been a topic at recent Shawnee Mission school board meetings, with parents and sometimes students stepping up during the special public comment periods to ask for the ban.
At Monday’s meeting, seven parents and one student shared concerns about how unrestricted or unevenly restricted phone use harms academic and social learning.
One student’s experience in school
Georgia McClain, 13, an eighth-grader, said she recently entered public school after being home schooled. When phones were allowed during lunch period at her Shawnee Mission school, she said, students kept their eyes on screens and were not socializing. When phones were temporarily banned later, she said, students began talking to each other and having eye contact.
She added that phone use also impeded class progress in art because so many students were using their time to film TikToks and did not meet their deadlines. As a result those who completed the assignments had to wait for others to catch up, she said.
“Sitting in art class not doing art due to peers filming TikToks is not how I wanted to spend my time,” she said.
Her mother, Kristen McClain of Overland Park, said she worried for kids who went into college not knowing how to handle social conflicts with roommates or criticism.
“I just want the classroom to be a place where teachers can instruct and focus on what they need to and not be worried about asking people to put away cell phones,” she said.
“It’s going to get real hot”
Leslie Smith of Prairie Village said teachers have enough on their hands without having to keep track of cell phone use.
“The screen addiction is too tempting to allow students to carry phones throughout the school day. My experience is that students without phones are happier, more engaged and are kinder to students and staff members than those students who are lost in their phones for half a period,” she said.
Another parent, Allison Brimblecom, noted the profit motive for tech companies interested in keeping kids on their screens. The phones may be everywhere, but “I don’t believe we should throw our hands up and say well this is just how the world is now and we can’t do a thing about it.”
Another speaker, Sean Claycamp, acknowledged there may be pushback from parents who don’t want the change because they may like being able to text their student and get an immediate response.
“As you develop this policy it’s going to get real hot,” he said. “But I want you to know the overwhelming majority of parents will support you.”
The group speaking Monday, which included Kim Whitman, a co-founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement advocating for cell phone bans, was also energized by comments at the May board meeting from at-large board member David Westbrook, who likened smartphones to asbestos in their toxic effects.
SMSD part of a broader debate about phones in school
After cell phones became ubiquitous in Western countries, mental health among teenagers began to plummet, Westbrook said.
He recently gave other board members copies of the book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” by Jonathan Haidt.
“I would like to draw a line in the sand on this issue and say it’s something we need to think about and discuss seriously,” he said.
Although every public speaker at Monday’s meeting was in favor of a ban, parents have not necessarily been quick to accept bans when they’ve been proposed in other districts around the U.S.
Objections have often come from parents worried about losing contact with their child during a school shooting, essentially pitting concerns about one modern anxiety against another.
Cell phones also have been used to document misconduct or racial incidents, including one last year at Shawnee Mission East High School that led to criminal charges against a white male student who called a Black female student a racial slur before exchanging punches with her.
What are other local districts doing?
A push for cell phone bans in schools has gathered momentum in Kansas City and across the country in recent weeks.
The Olathe School District is considering restricting cell phone use during class as is the DeLaSalle Education Center, a public charter high school in Kansas City, Missouri.
Kansas is also among the state legislatures that have introduced bills proposing a ban on phone use during class time.
Some of that push is coming from the national Phone-Free Schools Movement.
Whitman, the co-founder of that group who is from Overland Park, urged Shawnee Mission board members to take up the cause, saying a recent National Education Association survey found that 79% of educators find phones to be disruptive to learning.
The U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy also recently warned about the damaging mental health impact of social media on children, calling for warning labels — akin to those found on tobacco products — for social media platforms.
