The Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education took its first reading on April 15 of a new district-wide policy banning all personal electronics during school hours to protect quality learning environments and limit social and cyber harassment.
While the policy acknowledges the safety and communication benefits personal electronics provide, it cites the classroom disruption and the link to damaged mental health as reasons why the new policy is necessary.
The document defines personal technology devices (PTD) as any privately owned electronic device — including cell phones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, earbuds, and cameras.
“The Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education aims to protect high-quality learning environments by limiting distractions caused by personal technology,” the policy reads. “While recognizing that Personal Technology Devices (PTD) can offer safety and family connection, their use is linked to poor mental health and classroom disruption.”
The first reading stipulates that the ban would be a “bell-to-bell” ban across all campus areas during school hours, including field trips, as they are still “learning environments.” After-school and extracurricular activities wouldn’t be affected by the new policy.
“Our time with students is limited,” the staff memo reads. “We spend less than 27% of children’s annual waking hours with them. We need students’ full attention, commitment, and engagement at school to deliver on our commitment to eliminating achievement gaps and ensuring all students’ academic success. Removing personal technology devices from the school-day learning environment is an essential part of this process.”
The digital shutdown would include parking lots and gyms, and would make accessing social media or any non-academic apps strictly prohibited, along with capturing any audio or video. The policy recommends that elementary and middle schools collect devices at the beginning of the day — an already commonplace practice at all RFSD elementary and middle schools, according to RFSD Executive Director of Schools Joel Hathaway.
The memo reads that high school students are expected to manage their own devices in compliance with the new rules. The RFSD staff will be expected to lead by example, “limiting phone use to emergencies or student-related behavioral responses during work hours,” according to the policy.
Because of the massive cultural shift the proposed policy would create, if implemented, the district is ensuring it’s taking in feedback from shareholders from all perspectives: including students, staff, parents, leaders, the equity advisory council, and neighboring school districts.
After the board’s initial read and comments on April 15, the policy will be revised through continued stakeholder conversations and the district’s advisory council before returning for two more readings.
“We know that the proposed policy will be a shift in culture and practice for high school students and families,” the policy reads. “There is a heavy burden on school leaders and staff to redesign practices around these new guidelines. Yet it is our core responsibility to ensure that the Roaring Fork Schools are safe, secure learning environments where we do everything possible to support student success.”
The memo states that the Aspen School District and the Garfield Re-2 School District have both already shifted to a “full ban” on cell phones.
Stakeholder concerns
After extensive meetings with staff, students, councils, parents, and community members, the district believes the main issue with the policy stems from enforcement, not the policy itself.
“A lot of the stakeholder groups we talked to flagged enforcement as one of the primary concerns with the policy, not the policy itself,” Hathaway said during the meeting.
“There’s a general consensus that this is good for our schools and for our students, but enforcement is going to be tricky. I feel like we’ve done a good job of creating a template for what that looks like, but we’ll need to be flexible and adjust as we get into it,” Hathaway continued.
The staff memo that breaks down stakeholders’ concerns into bullet points can be summarized by Hathaway’s previous statement, most noticeably by school leaders and deans of culture. The most outspoken against the proposed policy were high school students and parents, who expressed concerns about enforcement and communication, as well as broader issues such as the definition of PTD and the scope of the policy.
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“Students were concerned about their ability to send and receive communications with their parents, teams, clubs, and workplaces at will throughout the school day,” the memo reads. “For the most part, students requested we continue the current (inconsistent) practice of collecting cell phones at the start/end of each class period and enabling students to utilize phones during passing periods, free periods, and lunchtime.”
To try and mitigate the ensuing chaos a lack of communication between parents and children would create, part of the policy includes the district leaning into a new communication platform known as ParentSquare — giving parents, coaches, and whoever else the ability to text straight to the students’ email.
“There is a very clear pathway for a parent to text their child through ParentSquare and for the student to be able to get that message through their Chromebook email, not their cell phone, but their email,” RFSD Superintendent Anna Cole explained. “The kid would then be able to send an email that would go to their parents’ text. There will be this opportunity for communication throughout the day, but not on a kid’s phone.”
High school students, particularly juniors and seniors, were also concerned about the ban because it includes personal laptops, smartwatches, and other technology devices.
High school students commonly use personal laptops rather than school-issued Chromebooks because they offer greater technological capabilities and can access personal email accounts — a necessity for college applications.
“Many juniors and seniors were concerned about the technological capacity of the school-issued Chromebooks to efficiently deliver coursework through Colorado Mountain College concurrent enrollment classes and integrate with college application tools,” the memo says.
In addition to students and parents, a majority of feedback the district received came from its Equity Advisory Council (EAC). Comprised of 17 students from Glenwood Springs, Basalt, and Roaring Fork high schools (93% Latino, 7% white), partners from Valley Settlement, Stepping Stones, Garfield County Public Health, the Colorado Department of Education and RFSD staff (one teacher, one dean of culture, one family resource center staff member and two administrators), the council led three two-hour meetings researching the impacts that cell phone use has on student learning, school culture and mental and behavioral health.
“Overall, the EAC affirmed strengths in the draft, including clear differentiation across grade levels and transparent incorporation of advisory input, even when not all EAC recommendations were considered. Students from EAC remain aligned with the summary of all student feedback detailed above,” the memo reads.”
The EAC pointed out that the enforcement process needs to remain transparent and unbiased, explaining that inconsistent implementation could lead to some students being disproportionately punished, and that students, particularly at the high school level, should be entitled to a certain amount of trust and “developmental appropriateness.”
“Members emphasized the need for clear, transparent expectations to mitigate bias and ensure equitable enforcement across schools,” the memo reads. “The student leaders raised the importance of maintaining student autonomy, particularly at the high school level, and ensuring that the policy reflects developmental appropriateness and trust in students’ ability to manage communication devices responsibly.”
Members of the EAC also pointed out the need for a clearly defined accessibility process for accommodations related to medical, personal, and family needs.
“Both students and families will require clarity on how requests are made and implemented. Although school leaders offered some solutions, such as going to a trusted adult, some EAC student leaders voiced that some students do not have a trusted adult in their school building,” the memo states.
Members also pointed out the need for bilingual, ongoing communication about the policy to ensure students and families have enough time to adjust to the change, as well as a grace period before enforcement begins.
The policy will come before the board at least twice more before a vote, and the school district is offering constructive feedback through public comment. For more information, visit rfschools.com.