Needham High Adapts to New Phone Rule

September 23, 2024
• After a push for stronger action around phone use in school, NHS now requires every class to use phone holders during instruction.

Now entering their fifth week of school, Needham high schoolers and teachers are still adjusting to a new universal practice targeting students’ devices.

All Needham High School classrooms now contain phone cubbies, into which students are required to place their phones before every class. The cubbies, also called phone hotels, resemble hanging shoe pouches and should be visible at the front of every classroom.

Current NHS policy restricts phone use during lessons, unless approved by teachers for instruction. About one-third of teachers already used the phone cubbies, NHS Principal Aaron Sicotte said, while others relied on students to put their phones away in their bags.

Making the cubbies a fixture in every classroom creates much-needed consistency, Sicotte said. Most students have responded with “begrudging recognition that it is helpful,” he added.

“It shifts from ‘my teacher is making me do this’ to ‘my teacher is reminding me that we’re all doing this,’ and that’s a really important mindset shift for everybody,” Sicotte said. “What might otherwise be friction or head butting, it’s really just more about, ‘Hey, just a reminder, this is what we’re doing in this community, and everybody is taking part in it.’”

Since introducing the new system, there have been “almost no issues” from teachers or students, Sicotte said.

In a message to faculty at the start of school, Sicotte outlined the practice and its guidelines for teachers to follow, including that the cubbies should be hung where students can see it because “it can reduce [their] anxiety.” Upon entering the class, students themselves should place their phones in the cubby, Sicotte wrote, and the phones should stay there during trips to the bathroom.

“Using the phone holders will be an expectation and not a battle,” he wrote.

The change followed an end-of-year staff meeting in which teachers seemed to agree on taking some school-wide phone action, according to some NHS teachers. During the school year, they will continue to discuss the impact of phones and technology on students and their learning, Sicotte said.

Needham Local previously spoke with several NHS teachers, some of whom either currently use or previously implemented the phone hotels in their classrooms, with mixed results.

Two NHS teachers, who spoke freely under the condition of anonymity, both view the new action favorably.

One teacher, who already used the phone holders for some classes, is in “full support” of the effort. Their students are placing their phones in the cubby without being prompted to do so, and their bathroom breaks are much shorter without access to their devices, the teacher said.

Before class and during classroom breaks, students are also interacting with each other more, the teacher noted.

“They get a chance to talk with one another instead of the mindless staring at a screen as they stumble along,” the teacher wrote in an email. “It has made my job easier!”

While optimistic about the change in practice, another teacher noted its impact may still be too soon to determine. The teacher once used phone hotels but, as of last year, found they were too difficult to police.

In their view, the standardized practice “has been going well in the classrooms,” the teacher said.

“There are still concerns over students using phones excessively during X-block, passing time, lunch, study halls, etc,” the teacher wrote via email.

Before the new procedure took effect, senior class president Alex Duan said he believed an outright ban would be impractical and harmful but feels the phone holders would work on their own. Duan acknowledged, though, that phones may lead to less socialization between classmates.

Different rules around phones are also enforced at other Needham Public Schools. Middle schoolers with phones or other personal technology must keep them in their bags or lockers throughout the school day. Students in elementary school are also prohibited from using their devices, according to NPS student handbooks.

In a blog post from August, Superintendent Dan Gutekanst wrote he’s heard from parents wanting to severely limit phone use, though he took a stance against a ban. Alongside stakeholders, the School Committee plans to examine possible changes to phone policies, he added.

“Unfortunately, folks are often too eager to tell professional educators what to do to manage and address various student/educational issues and problems that inevitably arise in the school setting,” Gutekanst wrote. “Here is one serious suggestion to parents who want devices banned: Don’t purchase a phone for your child… But if you do give them a phone, don’t let them take it to school.”

Sicotte previously told Needham Local that he also opposes a phone ban at NHS — taking phones away completely, he said, would undermine their role as educators preparing students for the real world. However, if a ban is determined to be the best course of action, he said he’ll work to successfully implement it.

In conversation with about 25 other area high school principals, Sicotte said every one of them has instituted a phone policy, the most common approach being the phone holders.

One notable, early result of the change in Needham: Fewer students seem to be roaming the hallways during class time.

“It’s harder to coordinate a conversation with your buddy when you’re out in the bathroom and your buddy’s in class when neither of you have your phone,” Sicotte said. “Kids are leaving and going to the bathroom and maybe stretching their legs a little bit and coming back to class and not having any connection with other kids who are otherwise engaged in their own learning.”