Dear MVRHS Community,
Perhaps you have heard lately that the high school is looking to implement “Away for the Day” with regard to phones next year. This is an extension of our current rule which states that students hand phones in to teachers at the start of classes and flex time. “Away for the Day” would bring the high school expectations in alignment with the current expectations of the island middle schools–that phones are away for the entire day.
We invite you to join our community forum tomorrow night as we share our reasons for pursuing this initiative and gather considerations and questions to inform our smartphone plan moving forward. Please RSVP here.
The “why” is incredibly important here. Asking students to go without phones for the duration of the school day is not simply an academic endeavor. Yes, phones are distractions in class, and it has been an incredible challenge to ensure that all 90 teachers collect phones at the start of each block of class time. And yes, years of research show a correlation between teen use of phones in schools and a decline in academic outcomes and engagement worldwide.
However, the team that looked into “Away for the Day” at MVRHS has spent more time discussing the need to reclaim high school as a social experience. We strongly believe — and research supports — that teens are happier when they are interacting with one another off screen. We yearn for loud hallways and boisterous lunch rooms again. We want students to continue to discuss classroom topics even after the bell rings. These moments are critical to the brain development that happens in childhood and adolescence. However useful phones are, access to them throughout the school day impacts healthy social and academic development. And healthy academic and social development is the core mission of schools.
For more information and topics that will be discussed at the forum, visit the website here.