Cell phone ban in classrooms being tested by Ann Arbor high school

ANN ARBOR, MI – Teens at Skyline High School are getting an early taste of learning without their cell phones dividing their attention in class.

Under a new pilot policy this school year, the school’s 1,300 students are expected to place their phones in a pocket card, similar to shoe racks, where they will remain until class ends or unless a teacher asks them to use them for educational purposes.

According to Skyline Principal Casey Elmore, students are still allowed to use their phones during recess and lunch.

The cellphone ban was something some teachers wanted, Elmore said, before surveys of parents, staff and students, and focus groups with students, helped shape an initiative to implement the idea at school.

“At first the kids weren’t too happy about it. But what I would say is it’s going really well,” Elmore said.

“I think we’ve had several students actually thank us and say that they’ve never been so engaged in their learning, that they’ve never done so well in their classes, that they’re really paying attention. People are actually talking to each other and they’re not being distracted by other people’s phone use, even if they’re not being distracted by their own phone use.”

Read more: 3 New Principals Join Ann Arbor Public Schools

Banning mobile phones in the classroom is a trend that is becoming more common in primary and secondary schools across the country, as teachers aim to minimise distractions and improve students’ mental health and academic performance.

A Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teachers in the fall of 2023 found that 72% of high school teachers felt that cell phones were a major problem in the classroom because they distracted their students.

Concerns were also raised by Ann Arbor School Board members at its Aug. 28 meeting and again at a Sept. 5 committee meeting, when Superintendent Jazz Parks said administrators waited a few weeks into the school year to update them on “how students and staff are adjusting” to Skyline.

“I think everybody cares about this,” Susan Schmidt, treasurer of the board of directors, said Sept. 5. “We’ve all found that staring at a screen is probably not the way to learn with your phone as a distraction.”

AAPS spokesman Andrew Cluley said some teachers at all of the district’s high schools have implemented their own cellphone bans in recent years. He acknowledged that “this is not something new.”

But he said the schoolwide idea also aligns with other tools that help students from high school on up develop healthy relationships with their screens.

An example of a program from last year, Cluley said, paired high school students with University of Michigan students to engage in “a variety of topics, including cell phones” — picking up advice and habits from young adults closer to their age and similar to their peers rather than teachers or people in positions of authority.

“We’re excited to see how this goes at Skyline this year,” he said. “It can serve as a really good pilot for the entire district, and we can figure out at this one school what’s working well and where there might be some pain points. And then we’ll look at what we want to do district-wide in the future.”

Skyline administrators have also noticed other benefits, Elmore said, such as not having to use an access card to use their phone as often.

Instead, they are in class more often to learn, she said.

“The cell phone addiction that we see in students is definitely impacting their mental health and well-being,” Elmore said. “And I think if we can just step away from that for a moment and really focus on school, we’ll really see improvements in our academic outcomes, and also in our social, emotional, and mental health outcomes.”

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