That’s what lunch monitors told Bethlehem Central High School principal Dave Doemel this fall, after the school — in the suburbs of Albany, N.Y. — implemented a total mobile phone ban.
He gestured to the cafeteria in front of us as though to a miracle. Clusters of chatting students made a hum punctuated by the clatter of trays and the squeak of chairs. It seemed totally normal to me. But that could be because the last time I was in a high school cafeteria at lunchtime was ... in the 1980s.
So he pushed for a total ban, and the school board voted unanimously in favor. Parents were concerned — that they wouldn’t be able to reach their children during the school day or that their children would be cut off in an emergency. But they can still call the office or even email. All the students have Chromebooks, and all the classrooms have phones that can dial 911.. Doemel compares it with “giving a kid a cigarette and saying, here, be responsible.
He meant teachers. But school districts are wary, too, even though they know cellphones cause problems. Piscitelli has observed the damage to kids and the school caused by constant access to social media. “If there’s a conflict, it never ends,” he said. “It just keeps going.”I didn’t see any conflict when Piscitelli and I visited study hall, although who knows what lurked inside the little magic boxes that every student had out next to their work.