This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
When Leah Wolczko began collecting her students’ cell phones during class, she became an “urban legend.”
The former Manchester teacher saw her students lagging in their coursework due to the disruption and distraction that cell phones brought to her classroom. So, she bought a clear closet organizer to hang on her classroom wall and sold parents, one by one, on the idea that their kids should deposit their phones into the organizer pockets when they walked into class.
Students improved across the board. The results were so remarkable, she said, that word spread and other teachers and students stopped by her classroom to see how it worked.
Last week, Wolczko testified in support of a cell phone ban in all New Hampshire classrooms, voicing her support – and the direness of the situation – in no uncertain terms.
“If you don’t pass something like this, nothing else you do here is going to matter,” she said. “It isn’t going to matter what the curriculum is, what the supports are, how long the day is, what kind of whatever, because they’re not there. If they’re not there, they can’t be reached.”
Republican lawmakers plan to change that. The bill, sponsored by Haverhill Rep. Rick Ladd and other high-ranking conservatives, including Rep. Jim Kofalt from Wilton and Sen. Ruth Ward from Stoddard, would require New Hampshire school districts to create policies restricting cell phone use during instructional time. Gov. Kelly Ayotte also supports the legislation, vowing in her inaugural address to get it passed.
In its first draft, the bill permits two exceptions: for teachers to allow phones to be used for a class activity, and for students with special education exemptions who may need them for medical use.
Other aspects of the policies would be up to local school districts, though several teachers and school administrators said they wish the bill would impose heavier restrictions.
Wolczko said she would support a total ban on cell phones.
“They’re chemically, physically addicted,” she said. Her students had a hard time adjusting to the policy.
Ladd said he personally believes that phones shouldn’t be used throughout the school day, passionately promoting his bill to a House committee that appeared largely receptive to it.
In talking with doctors, Ladd said, he’s learned more kids are experiencing mental and emotional health problems that stem from cell phone use.
“What are they doing as they’re walking down the hallway of the school now?” Ladd said. “It used to be, it was a great social experience. Kids were yanking around with each other, having fun, talking to each other, looking to the whites of the eyes. Now what are they looking at? The white of the cell phone.”
Cameron Marvin, a middle-schooler in Pelham, said when his school adopted a phone policy this fall, kids were resistant at first.
As the months pass, however, Cameron said school is calmer. Classes aren’t interrupted as much, and students no longer goof off and make videos in the bathrooms. He used to be nervous to go into the bathroom, he said, because other kids would be filming – often of themselves “doing something wrong.” He said he didn’t want to get caught or associated with other people engaging in poor behavior.
“It’s more peaceful,” Cameron said. “There’s a huge weight lifted off our shoulders.”
His school uses phone pouches that lock while in the classroom but can be unlocked by tapping the phone on a specially programmed magnet in the areas where phones aren’t restricted. That way, his superintendent said, students can keep their personal property while also limiting phone use.
Everyone who testified in person supported the bill. Online, 19 supported the bill and three opposed it.
Rep. Megan Murray, a Democrat from Milford, said families can have conversations on their own about screen time and time management. Ladd argued that students should be focusing on the subject material instead of trying to multitask on their phones.
Ladd said he expects a central question to follow the debate on his bill: state versus local control.
While trying to thread the needle between state and local authority, he said in this case the state must prevail.
“As a state,” Ladd said, “we are tasked with a responsibility and a mission to ensure that all students have the opportunity to receive an adequate education.”
