Cambridge Schools Go Analog With No-Phones Policy

As middle and high school students descended upon Cambridge for their first day of classes on Tuesday, one thing was missing from their pockets: cell phones.

Beginning this fall, cell phone use during instructional time will not be permitted for all students grades six through twelve, Cambridge interim Superintendent David Murphy said in an interview Tuesday.

“We just want to make sure that our learning environments are as free of distractions as possible so that the focus can be on the teaching and learning,” Murphy said.

According to Cambridge Public Schools spokesperson Sujata Wycoff, though how phones are confiscated may vary across schools, expectations remain the same: cell phones will be collected at the beginning of each period and returned at the end, but students can use their phone during lunch time, in between classes, and before or after school.

Marimay R. Diaz Chan, a sophomore at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, Cambridge’s high school, said that while she finds the policy “reasonable,” she and her peers were frustrated and surprised that phones were also being confiscated during the Advisory Period — a 45-minute block on Thursdays and Fridays for students to unwind, catch-up on homework, and talk to their teachers.

“For the most part there isn’t any academic material being shown to us, and I find it kind of unnecessary to take it away during that time,” Diaz Chan said.

“I think that was a shock for all of us,” she said.

CRLS is “finalizing the purchase of equipment for cell phone storage in all classrooms,” Wycoff wrote in an email. In the meantime, each classroom has employed different methods: some used cubbies, some used clear pencil cases, and some used cardboard boxes, said Diaz Chan.

Though Sergio A. Diaz, Diaz Chan’s father, appreciated that the policy would help students focus on schoolwork and interact with their peers more, he expressed concern over whether students would be able to access their phones in an emergency.

“There’s a lot of emergency information that could come across through the cell phone, and not everybody has the same phone plan,” Diaz said. “So maybe there’s situations where one phone carrier will be able to deliver an emergency message better than another.”

In April, a member of the Cambridge Police Department accidentally discharged his firearm in a staff bathroom at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. Though the incident did not result in an evacuation or impact the school day, it was later addressed during a School Committee meeting.

There has also been a nationwide rise in school shootings in recent years. According to The Washington Post, more than 382,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999.

Though cell phone storage is designed to be “out of sight and hopefully out of mind,” Murphy asserted that cell phones would be accessible in the case of an emergency.

“Each of our schools have a series of emergency preparedness protocols that are in place to keep our students safe, regardless of whether or not any individual student has a cell phone,” Murphy said.

The move to confiscate phones aligns with nationwide efforts to minimize usage in classrooms. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education awarded 77 districts almost $1.3 million in grants to reduce phone use. This fall, Worcester Public Schools and Ipswich Public Schools also adopted stringent cell phone policies.

“It’ll probably be annoying for at least the first two weeks, but I think everyone will get used to it,” Diaz Chan said. “Hopefully by next year, it’ll be more smoothed out and thought through, so it’ll be a lot easier for everyone to navigate this new policy.”

—Staff writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at darcy.lin@thecrimson.com.