Cascade School District weighs options for limiting cellphone use in classrooms

LEAVENWORTH – Cascade School District (CSD) is considering implementing a district wide policy regarding restricting phone use in schools.

Currently, cellphones are allowed in school for educational purposes only, but monitoring their use has been a challenge and burden for teachers, according to Cascade High School (CHS) Principal James Swanson.

“Right now at the high school, just to be transparent, the kids are using them a lot and it's not for necessarily educational purposes, so we're trying to rein that in, and we need help,” said Swanson.

CSD’s consideration is amid a nationwide effort to effectively manage phone use in classrooms. Eight states have passed state-wide policies that ban or restrict cellphone use in schools, including Florida and California, according to KFF Health News. 

Policymakers hope the changes will mitigate classroom distractions, as well as youth mental health concerns, following 2023 advisory in which the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned of the impact social media has on youth mental health.

In Washington, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction released a recommendation for school districts to adopt uniform policies around cellphone use by the 2025-2026 school year. School districts such as Pasco, Kennewick, Monroe, Reardon-Edwall, Mercer Island, and Seattle Public Schools have already implemented policies that limit or ban cellphone use. 

Recently, CSD leadership and advocates visited Mercer Island High School (MIHS), whose district implemented a cellphone ban during school hours this year. The district’s policy requires students to place their cellphones, earbuds and smart watches in pouches called Yondr bags each morning, which are locked and placed in the backpack until the end of the school day. Students with medical exceptions have velcro bags. 

“For me, one of the most striking things was walking into the school and just seeing kids walking through the hallways, talking to each other, looking up. We all noticed their posture. Nobody was hunched over a phone,” said CSD Superintendent Tracey Edou.

Mercer Island School District said it saw success in one school where rules and expectations were clear from the beginning, rather than another school, which struggled with expectations during its rollout. In order to mitigate safety, the district’s policy states that in the case of emergency, students will have access to their phones either by unlocking the pouch or cutting them open, staff will have access to their personal cellphones, each classroom has a phone that can make calls within or outside the school, and the district will communicate with families via email, text, social media, the website, and robocalls.

The MIHS leadership class told CSD representatives that they would have preferred the policy was implemented during the school year rather than over summer, and felt that the Yondr bags were overkill.

“It was fun to listen to them, because in the same breath, they would say that they really don't like the policy, but they also completely understand why it's there and that it actually is a good thing in a lot of ways,” said Swanson.

Stevie Clifton, a parent of Icicle River middle schoolers, is a part of a parent group that has been collaborating with the school district to explore a number of different options utilized by other school districts.

“I would really hope that it helps to show students what it feels like to not have constant access…That feeling of, ‘Oh, you know, I actually don't need to be connected 24/7,’” said Clifton. 

Policies vary from district to district, such as requiring that cellphones be off and in backpacks, or locking them in a Yondr bag. Restrictions also vary from only during class, to prohibiting them during school hours altogether. The schools have opened discussion with students, parents and teachers about which direction CSD should take.

During a district wide survey, 61 percent of high school parents who responded said they preferred phone use restriction during school hours, along with 67 percent of middle school parents, and 81 percent of elementary school parents. 

Allowing phones for emergency use was the second most popular among parents of high school (20 percent) and middle school (25 percent) parents. Ten percent of elementary school parents preferred phone use for communication over emergency use (8 percent).

Among parent’s highest concerns and priorities were the need for fair and consistent enforcement, student safety, and ability to contact students throughout the day.

“We're not at the decision making point yet, but we're kind of on a pathway to try to figure out what Cascade is going to do,” said Edou.

Taylor Caldwell: 509-433-7276 or taylor@ward.media