Teachers at this tech-forward school banned cell phones. They say they’re ‘never going back.’

For Matthew Kay, the 2023-24 school year will always be the dividing line: before, when cell phones were nearly ubiquitous, and after, when he and the rest of the ninth-grade faculty at Science Leadership Academy required them to be out of kids’ reach during class time.

Kay has taught at SLA, the nationally regarded Philadelphia magnet school that was at the vanguard of the tech-in-schools movement, since its founding in 2006. But the change he has witnessed since the cell phone policy shifted on May 1 was enough to convince him that phones were technology the kids did not need.

“I don’t think I’ve done an about-face as strongly as this. I was all about, ‘Don’t take it from them, teach them how to use it,’” Kay said. “But we would be bad adults if we put the phones back in their hands.”

The role of cell phones in schools is a hot-button issue both nationally and across the region. The Philadelphia School District has identified “phone-free environments in schools during instructional time” as key to academic achievement, according to district documents, though officials have given latitude to individual schools to determine how they want to achieve that.

Cell phone use has been an increasing frustration in class, Kay said. SLA is a project-based school, and Kay and his colleagues witnessed students becoming less efficient with their time as their cell phone use rose, particularly post pandemic.

“I’d say, ‘I gave you a week-and-a-half, and you only have a paragraph written. What’s going on?’” Kay said.

In the past, students would interact during free time; once phones were introduced, when there was down time, they would be scrolling social media and not talking to each other.

“Classes didn’t seem like they had much connective tissue,” said Kay, who has written multiple books on discussing race with students. “They didn’t know each other that well.”

Technically, there were rules around cell phone use — that is, phones couldn’t be out during class time. If Kay saw a phone, he took it away. But that strategy got less and less effective.

“It was pulling so much more of their attention that it was no longer me taking one or two phones a week. It was turning into four or five or six a class. If you weren’t going to do that, then essentially you just quit,” said Kay.

Eventually, Kay and a colleague began talking about taking phones away for real, having kids slide them into numbered pouches hanging near the door when they walked in. If the whole ninth-grade team did it together, then “none of us was that teacher,” Kay said.

They picked May 1 to start the policy, and informed students.

When Kay talked to his students about the coming ban, he told students that their phones would be in a pouch at the front of the room. If they needed it during class, they could go to the pouch to use it there. (Every student in school system has a district-issued Chromebook.)

“I told them, ‘Someone has to be the adult,’ and that really resonated with them in ways that I didn’t expect. I said, ‘I see a lot of you are having trouble during work periods, and I see a lot of you don’t know each other as much as I want you to know each other,’” Kay said. “I’m 40 years old. You are 14. If you were hitting yourself with a stick every day, I would take the stick out of your hand.”

He expected pushback — from parents and especially from students. But he got thank-you emails from parents, and students were “less spicy” than he expected, Kay said. On Day 1, some students brought in a second phone; Kay teased them about their burner phones and the end-runs around the rule died out within a day.

The quality of their work deepened, Kay said. And kids began pulling out decks of cards during down time, Kay said. They talked to each other.

“Everything is better. My classroom kind of felt in an interpersonal way like it was 10 years ago. It was kind of touching, honestly,” Kay said.

Hannah Bland, an SLA 9th grader, wasn’t happy about the policy at first.

“I really didn’t like having my phone taken away,” said Bland, 14. But after she got used to the policy, it started to make sense. And then a funny thing happened: She liked it.

“It helped me focus more in class. I was more focused on my work. I think I have gotten more engaged in my work.”

Eryn Grant, another SLA freshman, had a similar experience.

“When we have our phones, we’re not really paying attention to our teachers,” said Grant, 15. “Now, I got to know a lot of my classmates better.”

In The Anxious Generation, author Jonathan Haidt argues that the “phone-based childhood” has replaced “play-based childhood” and is causing widespread mental health issues among youth, among other issues. That matched what Kay was seeing in class.

“The second something gets hard, it’s easier to just swipe your thumb a few times and not work through the knot that you’re trying to work through. That’s what is killing the kids in the work period,” said Kay.

Haidt has called for phone-free schools, and it makes sense to Kay to keep phones out of classrooms.

“I work hard at being interesting, and I get annoyed when people say if you were just more interesting, then that would overcome the phones,” said Kay. “That’s objectively not true. No one can compete with TikTok. The classroom has got to be a place where they have to not be around those algorithms.”

SLA’s ninth grade teachers are carrying the policy forward into next year and beyond, Kay said. Chris Lehmann, SLA’s principal, is behind it.

“Fundamentally, the most important thing that we can do is teach kids about the attention economy when it comes to their cell phones, and to help kids understand that their attention is being monetized,” said Lehmann. “With all things, we have to start asking better questions about the way that we use these devices, and I think that’s what we’re trying to do. It’s not just an unexplored or unexplained band. This is about how we help kids become more intentional about their attention.”

Last year, SLA had a “cell phone reboot” where students spent time in their advisory period examining their cell phone use and thinking and talking about how the devices affected them.

The ninth-grade class ban may well spread, Lehmann said.

“School-wide, we are working towards not having cell phones in class, period,” said Lehmann.