Phone-free high schools in NoVa?

[Anonymous]

Looking to evaluate options for a phone-free high school in northern Virginia. Ideally independent but would consider Catholic, etc.

[Anonymous]

JPG does not allow phones during school hours at all. They are the most restrictive that I’ve heard about. Ireton is strict about during class but allows them at lunch times. I believe O’Connell is similar.

[Anonymous]

Banned at Dominion Christian - they go in a basket up front.

[Anonymous]

Our school gives detention if they are out in an academic building (even walking to class), but I wish they'd ban them and do what the school in Connecticut does---check them in upon arrival--put in pouch and get the unlock at end of the day. They have lunch and long study break and we can view that they are on their phones most of that time. Kids now play games on the iphones, stay buried in them when generations before were outside throwing the ball, or engaging face-to-face, etc.

This generation is suffering big time from iphones.

I just received the book "The Anxious Generation" and nobody can read that and not want to do something immediately.

Here's a blurb and link to Post article about the cell phone ban:

Those who had cellphones in their hands slipped them into individual gray pouches made of synthetic rubber. They clicked the magnetic lock at the top of their pouches shut, then placed them into their backpacks or held them up to show teachers. The pouches would stay with them, locked, until dismissal at 2:45 p.m.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/01/school-cellphones-confiscate/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school gives detention if they are out in an academic building (even walking to class), but I wish they'd ban them and do what the school in Connecticut does---check them in upon arrival--put in pouch and get the unlock at end of the day. They have lunch and long study break and we can view that they are on their phones most of that time. Kids now play games on the iphones, stay buried in them when generations before were outside throwing the ball, or engaging face-to-face, etc.

This generation is suffering big time from iphones.

I just received the book "The Anxious Generation" and nobody can read that and not want to do something immediately.

Here's a blurb and link to Post article about the cell phone ban:

Those who had cellphones in their hands slipped them into individual gray pouches made of synthetic rubber. They clicked the magnetic lock at the top of their pouches shut, then placed them into their backpacks or held them up to show teachers. The pouches would stay with them, locked, until dismissal at 2:45 p.m.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/01/school-cellphones-confiscate/

book:

https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book
After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on most measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the *play-based childhood" began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this "great rewiring of childhood" has interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

[Anonymous]

Have to be put in your locker from bell to bell at Trinity Christian.

[Anonymous]

It seems this question gets asked every two weeks lately. Please do a search and you will find numerous posts. For high school, low tech/no phone options will be pretty limited to Waldorf and classical Christian type schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems this question gets asked every two weeks lately. Please do a search and you will find numerous posts. For high school, low tech/no phone options will be pretty limited to Waldorf and classical Christian type schools.

I am not the OP. But this is pretty sad. As a society, most of us think of Christian or other religious schools a bit backward. But hey, they seem to be doing what the research is showing. I am not considering any religious school for my kids. And that's why I am even sadder that my kids will be missing out the opportunity to be in a phone free environment. By the way, I am not considering Waldorf either. I want my kids to attend just regular/traditional schools that I wish were providing phone free environment.

[Anonymous]

Ireton does not allow phones at all during the school day. I have two students there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ireton does not allow phones at all during the school day. I have two students there.

They're allowed to have them out at lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school gives detention if they are out in an academic building (even walking to class), but I wish they'd ban them and do what the school in Connecticut does---check them in upon arrival--put in pouch and get the unlock at end of the day. They have lunch and long study break and we can view that they are on their phones most of that time. Kids now play games on the iphones, stay buried in them when generations before were outside throwing the ball, or engaging face-to-face, etc.

This generation is suffering big time from iphones.

I just received the book "The Anxious Generation" and nobody can read that and not want to do something immediately.

Here's a blurb and link to Post article about the cell phone ban:

Those who had cellphones in their hands slipped them into individual gray pouches made of synthetic rubber. They clicked the magnetic lock at the top of their pouches shut, then placed them into their backpacks or held them up to show teachers. The pouches would stay with them, locked, until dismissal at 2:45 p.m.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/01/school-cellphones-confiscate/

book:

https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book
After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on most measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the *play-based childhood" began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this "great rewiring of childhood" has interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

I just finished this book too and I think it should be mandatory reading for all current parents. Phones at only lunch does nothing to solve the problem.

Are there any non religious schools that have strict no phone policies?

[Anonymous]

The book should be mandatory for educators, too. Our private MS simply does not really take a stand on the issue - they are fostering the phone culture by doing nothing other than a loose rule of no phones out during class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems this question gets asked every two weeks lately. Please do a search and you will find numerous posts. For high school, low tech/no phone options will be pretty limited to Waldorf and classical Christian type schools.

I am not the OP. But this is pretty sad. As a society, most of us think of Christian or other religious schools a bit backward. But hey, they seem to be doing what the research is showing. I am not considering any religious school for my kids. And that's why I am even sadder that my kids will be missing out the opportunity to be in a phone free environment. By the way, I am not considering Waldorf either. I want my kids to attend just regular/traditional schools that I wish were providing phone free environment.

LOL a "bit backward"

Indoctrination is the key word.

And less academic for sure.

[Anonymous]

Not in Nova, but Holton is going phone-free in HS in fall 2024.

[Anonymous]

One neat trick to find a phone free school is you don't give your kid a phone.