Kate Grodin, co-principal of Winooski Middle and High School, describes the cafeteria for high school students at the Winooski Middle and High School as quiet. That is, compared to the “vibrant place of conversation” that is the middle school cafeteria.
The difference, she said, is due partly to the school’s policy limiting cellphone use for grades six through eight, while students in grades nine through 12 are allowed the use of cellphones during lunch or study hours.
But that will change this year. Winooski, like many other school districts around the state, has adopted a district-wide policy banning the use of cellphones or personal devices, often called a “bell-to-bell” ban, across all grades.
The change follows the passage of Act 72, which requires Vermont schools to adopt policies by the 2026-27 school year prohibiting students from using cellphones and other personal devices like smartwatches from arrival to dismissal. The law brings the state in line with 25 other states in the country that ban or restrict the use of smartphones in schools.
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But many students will begin the school year Wednesday at schools with new, or strengthened, policies around cellphone bans ahead of the state law’s deadline.
“We’re really trying to lead with this idea that our time together, it’s sacred,” Grodin said in an interview. “And we want to really support that as much as we can, which is why we’re falling in line with the policy a year early.”
Act 72 goes a step further than other state laws, and includes a provision barring schools from using social media platforms to communicate with students, and from otherwise requiring students to have social media accounts to engage in academic and extracurricular activities. That provision took effect immediately after Gov. Phil Scott signed the law in June.
Winooski is not alone in moving forward with a ban on cellphone use ahead of the deadline set by the state. The Champlain Valley School District, the Caledonia Central Supervisory Union, the Montpelier Roxbury School District, and the Woodstock Union Middle and High School also have instituted new policies this year banning personal devices during the school day.
Other districts, like the Harwood Unified Union School District and the Lamoille South Supervisory Union, are entering their second year phone-free.
The Vermont Agency of Education will begin working with stakeholder groups this fall to draft a model policy in line with the new law, said agency spokesperson Toren Ballard. But he pointed to guidance published by the agency in February “for schools that intend to regulate student cellphone use in the meantime.”
Jay Nichols, the executive director of the Vermont Principals Association, said the ways schools are going about their bans are “really a gamut.” Some schools are offering pouches for students to keep their phones in during the day, while others are telling students to keep them turned off and in their lockers.
“But I think what we’re going to find is that schools are going to be in a really good place to do this,” he said, “and there’s essentially a whole bunch of pilots to kind of learn from.”
‘The best thing we’ve ever done’
The Harwood Unified Union School District for years had a policy that phones were expected to be kept away during class time, except at the direction of the teacher, according to Jess Deane, the assistant principal at the Harwood Union Middle and High School.
But those policies were “largely ineffective,” she said. Teachers spent much of their time asking students to put their phones away.
“A lot of the challenge of that just speaks to how addictive phones are,” Deane said. “If it’s in your pocket, it’s distracting you, because it’s buzzing every five seconds.”
During the 2023-24 school year, staff and faculty at the school, with input from the community, decided to create a cellphone ban for the following year. The district used its remaining federal Covid relief funds to purchase Yondr pouches, a container specifically for cellphones that can be locked and unlocked magnetically, for each student.
The feedback was almost universally positive, said Deane and Michael Leichliter, the Harwood district superintendent.
“What we thought could be a lot of controversy and issues turned into a lot of people and students who were appreciative of the ban on cellphones during the school day,” Leichliter said.
Students were paying attention again, and teachers were ramping up the difficulty level of their courses to match the newly found engagement.
“The overwhelming staff feedback at the end of the year in our reflections was like, ‘This was the best thing we’ve ever done,” Deane added.
The school saw improvement across the board. Students checked more books out from the school library, overall grades improved, and instances of bullying and harassment decreased, Deane said.
During the 2023-24 school year, Deane said there were 21 ninth-grade students who were failing three or more classes. The next year, when the cellphone ban was put in place, only two ninth-grade students were failing three or more classes, she said.
“We’ve had some measurable gains,” Leichliter said. “Now, while we can’t say definitively that it’s because of cellphones, there’s been a lot of evidence that would suggest that that was a big piece of it.”
Other schools hope to replicate that success. Adam Bunting, the superintendent of the Champlain Valley School District, said the district will offer students similar pouches that students can keep their phones in during the day but will not require they use them, yet.
Bunting describes his district’s policy as less of a ban and more “symbolic.” Students are expected to keep their phones put away for the entire day, rather than only during class time like the previous school year, but they will not be required to turn them in at the beginning of the day.
“We are going to kind of err on the side of trust first. We don’t feel like we need to start by locking (phones) away,” he said. “That plan may work and it may not, but we want to start there.”
The new state law, and the districts getting ahead of it, mark a growing reexamination of the emotional and cognitive impacts of smartphones and social media on teens in particular.
Rep. Angela Arsenault, D-Williston, who spearheaded the initiative in the Legislature last session, said she’s not surprised districts are moving ahead with their own policies before the law requires it.
“There’s just a greater awareness of what these products are actually doing to us,” she said. “And so there is more willingness to react in ways that feel very relevant and most protective of kids.”