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Students, teachers and health professionals tell House Education phone-free policies boost classroom engagement
Summary
Students and education stakeholders testified to the House Education Committee that phone-free school policies — using locked pouches and other systems — helped students focus and build social connections.
Students, teachers and health professionals told the House Education Committee on Feb. 26 that schoolwide phone-free policies help classroom engagement, social connection and student well-being, and asked the committee to consider a uniform state policy.
Student witnesses described systems used at their schools to keep phones and personal electronics out of classrooms. “When I left in the fall to go to semester school, I went to Alazar School. That's a school in Idaho and Chile. And we were without phones the entire semester and we got to build really strong connections,” said Elijah Renner, a student who testified that his home school later adopted a phone-free policy that included locked pouches. “Getting rid of phones is also really helpful because it makes people more critically engaged with the classroom.”
Students and the committee described the operational details used in those schools: phones placed in pouches (referred to in testimony as “Beyonder pouches”), pouches locked for the school day and unlocked with magnets at arrival and dismissed when students leave campus, with extra pouches available for students who forget them. David Dickson described using magnet-locked pouches that students unlock before leaving campus and lock again on return. Students said the policy also extended to other personal electronics such as earbuds.
Supporters told the committee the policy reduced the burden on teachers who face parental pushback when a single district implements a policy, and they argued a state-level rule would relieve local administrators of that conflict. Laura Daringinger presented a community letter with more than 1,000 signatures from teachers, students, health workers, parents and grandparents supporting statewide action. “We are asking you to be the hero of the moment,” said Benjamin Clark, who identified himself as a school board member at Harwood and a teacher in South Burlington.
Teachers and school staff described classroom adjustments used alongside the policy, including returning to paper note-taking, teachers photographing board work and posting images to Google Classroom, and office phones or staff-managed contact during emergencies. Students and staff said schools keep office lines available to parents and train staff to manage emergency communications; witnesses said protocols had been used successfully in their schools.
Health professionals in the room offered to provide organized testimony at a later date. “We will certainly look forward to having more formal testimony and organized testimony,” the committee chair said after pediatrician Rebecca Echika, a family physician named Prima Carlson, and a psychologist, Robin Osborne, identified themselves as clinicians who would be available to testify.
What the committee did not do in this hearing: testimony was oral and informal; the committee did not vote on a statutory proposal during the Feb. 26 meeting.
