AKRON, Ohio — As the state of Ohio considers a law limiting cell phone use in schools, many districts already have policies in place, but do they work?
A study from Common Sense Media found that kids over the age of 13 said they check their phones more than 100 times per day. More that one-fourth of that happens during the school day.
While Ohio legislators work to pass a law limiting cellphone use, some districts like Akron have already taken matters into their own hands. We checked in with how their policies changed the culture and academics.
The hallways of Ellet Community Learning Center in Akron are different this year. Student Devehja Thomas notices it.
"You don't see people walking and texting and slowing down the hallways," Devehja admitted. "Stuff like that."
This is the first school year Akron Public Schools took the extreme measure of having kids lock their cellphones in pouches and tuck them away all day. Starting the new policy was a challenge.
"It was an exhausting two weeks," Ellet principal Kim Sabetta told 3News. "It wasn't easy by any means."
In spite of the grueling stretch, Sabetta says the growing pains are worth it.
"When I go into the classrooms to do observations or just a visit as I'm walking through, you can see more students are engaged in the instruction that's being provided for them," she said. "The teachers don't have to worry about the students having their cell phones out, and they're focused on the work."
Teacher Nick Harris agrees.
"The kids were a lot more eager to be entertained, and like, 'Here's the only option you have is this social studies lesson, the math lesson, etc.,'" he noted. "They were much more eager to participate and engage in what we were trying to do."
Something else the teachers don't have to worry about? A different policy in every classroom. One of the big reasons why Akron decided to lock up phones across the board is so that the playing field was level for every teacher.
"When we know we are backed by administration — and this is just how it is, if they have it out, admin is going to come and take care of it — it allows us to concentrate on what we are actually there to do, which is teach," Harris said.
That's not the case for every school district. For example, Beachwood City Schools decided to let every high school teacher decide their own policy in each classroom, but cellphone use is prohibited.
Just this February, Mentor Public Schools also banned cellphone use during instructional time, but not in between classes. Parma also banned cellphone use during instructional time at their middle and high schools, and more districts are creating plans to put in place by this coming fall.
"I'm not naive — students know how to get into cellphone bags," Sabetta stated. "To an extent, I know that does take place, or maybe if they've broken their bag, something like that. But we really try and handle that right away, and at the end of the day, if they're keeping the cellphones away, then I feel like we've accomplished quite a bit."
Final grades aren't in yet, but Sabetta expects to see an improvement year-over-year, and she's not the only one.
"I feel that I'm more focused in school and getting my grades and stuff up," Devehja said. "And I'm not on my phone or any technology as much as I would be last year."
Academics weren't the main reason Akron decided on a full cellphone ban during school hours. It was actually a safety issue.
"One of the things that was disturbing was arranging fights, recording fights, posting fights," APS Director of Safety and Security Don Zesiger relayed. "It almost became like a TikTok challenge kind of thing, and we were worried about the safety of our students, and it goes out to social media. We just didn't' see anything positive coming out of that."
Zesiger says this year, they saw an overall drop in physical conflicts in the first half of the year — down 136 incidences in the first quarter and 183 in the second. He adds the numbers went up third quarter by 39, but so far in the fourth quarter, physical fights dropped from 906 last year to 387 currently, with just a few more weeks to go before summer break.
Safety seems to be the main concern for most parents, whether it's a matter of getting in touch with their kid in the horrible case of a tragedy or if they think their child needs it for health reasons. Tomorrow on "3News at 5," we'll talk to safety experts who say cellphones are actually counterproductive in an emergency, and address some of the questions parents are raising in most districts.