DALTON, Mass. — The Central Berkshire Regional School Committee approved utilizing Yondr pouches in its middle and high schools during its meeting on Thursday night. 

 

The pouches allow cell phones and other devices to be locked magnetically so they cannot be used during school hours. 

 

The district was approved for a $20,000 grant to cover the first year costs of the initiative. The funds will cover the cost of the pouches, replacement pouches, training, the permanent infrastructure, including the magnet installations, and support during this change. 

 

The goal of the policy change is to help students be more engaged in school and to prevent students from taking videos of their peers without permission and spreading them around, the School Committee said during its June meeting. 

 

The district does not intend to enact this initiative until the end of September or early Octotober as there are still some logistics that need to be taken care of first, Superintendent Leslie Blake-Davis said. 

 

There are a lot of moving parts to making sure the district has systems and structures in place before this change rolls out, she said in a followup conversation. 

 

"I think the most important component of this is, we want to make sure that we have the systems and structures in place prior to beginning and that we have adequately communicated our systems and structures and our process to our families, and our community," she said. 

 

"So, it's really more about making sure that everybody understands how we're going to roll it out." 

 

In order for this change to effectively work, it is crucial that the district practice with the system, do community outreach, and get the staff behind the change, Assistant Superintendent Michael Henault said. 

 

"If we don't do those steps, it will not work and this is too important to our students and their future," Henault said. 

 

"They might not thank us now but I think in a few years down the road, I think our teachers will be thankful of us now … we're really doing something that evidence shows is really beneficial to our kids and their mental health and their academic well-being."

 

School committee member David Stuart asked how the district intends on addressing the students mental health concerns regarding this change. 

 

Students are going to need support through this change and may need to rely on the district's adjustment or guidance, Blake-Davis said. 

 

The district is going to talk with principals to ensure there is a strategic plan in place to help students.

 

Through the district's instructional model, they are going to focus on teaching social skills using collaborative learning, Henault said. 

 

"I think that even our instructional model is geared towards getting kids to talk to each other in a way that takes the phone away," he said. 

 

The administration will use a tiered approach with the first step making sure that communication with families and students are clear, Blake-Davis said. 

 

The district is working on a way to communicate to parents that the infrastructure in place has been used for decades to put them in contact with their children, Henault said. 

 

"Very often it's parents that are texting students during the school day and so we're actually very clearly giving parents a line of communication to their students at the school," he said. 

 

"We can track down a student within seconds in our school … I think over time, the trust will build that if you have an emergency, if you need to get a hold of your student, or if they just forgot their gym shoes and you want to call and tell them that you're dropping them off, we have staff in place, we're able to do that."

 

Cell phone use has also been known to work against some of the systems that the district has in place, Blake-Davis said. 

 

For example, students will contact their families when they are not feeling well to be picked up before speaking with the nurse, she said.

 

"The nurse hasn't actually made the decision and the nurse hasn't had a real opportunity to have a conversation with their families. So, that kind of gets in the way," 

 

"What we want to do is, we want our school personnel to have conversations with families and sometimes [phones are] almost a barrier to that in some ways or it kind of gets in the way of that kind of communication." 

 

This change is going to be a learning curve and the district expects to hear from families regarding concerns, Blake-Davis said. 

 

School Committee members said they had heard from family members who are unhappy with this change. 

 

Students also have started to express their unhappiness, committee member Ellen Lattizzori said. 

 

School Committee member Amy Gelinas said both her daughter and son-in-law are for the change but they expressed that it will be interesting to see how teachers will handle it because they have to model the behavior. 

 

She also noted that there are already tutorials online of ways students can break into the pouches to get access to the phones. 

 

Some students were disturbed to find out that attempting to break into the pouches using a magnet has the possibility of wiping their phone, Lattizzori added. 

 

There will be a percentage of students who attempt to get access to their phone during this transition, Henault said. 

 

Yondr works with approximately 1,200 schools across the country and has a "huge" presence in 

Massachusetts, Yondr representative Matt Army said. 

 

The organization works with approximately 45 schools across the state including Boston Public Schools, Springfield, Greenfield, Chicopee, McCann Technical School in North Adams, and many more. 

 

The implementation has had a profound impact on students. They are able to take all the attention that goes into the phones and focus it on books, Yondr representative Matt Army said during the last school committee meeting. 

 

More information on Yondr pouches here.