Yondr pouch pilot program at some MS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since we are sharing updates and anecdotes, my daughter is at a control school without pouches and reports no issues from the first two weeks. Students have cells off and away, just last like year. Teachers in 8th grade are enforcing this just like her 7th grade teachers did and kids are not trying to sneak them out.

I should note that my daughter is AAP. Perhaps the less advanced students have more problems.

The county wide off and away policy was in place for one year (last year) and kids pretty much never had their phones out (regardless of AAP or not). It was pushed from the top down and was communicated to all parents as a county wide message. THAT made it more effective than policies in years past that differed from school to school. Teachers were instructed that students were not allowed to use their phone even for classroom activities AND it was no longer allowed out at lunch or in the hallways (which helped negate the "give an inch take a mile" effect).

That policy is being piloted alongside this yondr pouch pilot in other schools. I truly hope those schools continue to report that phones aren't an issue when you have a firm county wide policy and we can stop spending money on this ridiculous fad.

The high school always was (and continues to be) the biggest offender when it comes to cell phone use in class. Once the county heard the outcries from parents and teachers that THAT is truly where the problem was after the yondr pouches were announced, they last minute decided to implement a policy for those students. Now they're following a pilot where they put their phones in a hanging pouch when they enter the classroom and pick it up when they leave. Why did it take until now for them to do that? Individual teachers were doing it but now that the policy is being utilized school wide, it's more effective.

The trend here???? Policies that are county wide with firm disciplinary procedures alongside them are significantly more effective than those that are implemented in individual schools or classrooms. The county could have saved tens of thousands of dollars by simply continuing to push the off and away policy for middle school and implementing the pouch policy for ALL high schools in the county. But instead they went with the latest expensive fad for two grade levels where a large number of students don't even have phones.

Stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://wamu.org/story/24/09/03/robinson-secondary-school-fairfax-virginia-cellphone-pilot-program/

It's working

The article even states this is the honeymoon period.

Did you read the entire article? It covered nearly every objection on this thread - and said that the new pouches and hanging organizers are working excellently so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

It is pretty clear from reading this thread that outreach to parents would do nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

It is pretty clear from reading this thread that outreach to parents would do nothing.

Agree. I mean, OMG!! If there is a SCHOOL SHOOTER, what if your kid's phone is in DOWNTIME!! I don't know how some of you manage to send your kids off to school each morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

It is pretty clear from reading this thread that outreach to parents would do nothing.

Agree. I mean, OMG!! If there is a SCHOOL SHOOTER, what if your kid's phone is in DOWNTIME!! I don't know how some of you manage to send your kids off to school each morning.

One would hope that if that horrible situation were to occur, the kids would know to run like hell ratger than texting on their phones

[Anonymous]

My (rule-following, needless to say) MS student came home yesterday highly entertained after seeing the principal confiscate a phone in the hallway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal was clear that in a true emergency the pouches can be cut open.

But really, phones ruin classrooms 100% of days and true emergencies are exceedingly rare. Worth the trade off, IMO.

How do phones ruin the classroom. Unless they are blasting music or causing a disturbance what is the problem?

Really? You can’t figure it out in your own? If students are scrolling and on their phones the entire time, how much do you think they’re actually paying attention to instruction?

There is a big difference between a kid who is in constant scroll and a kid who wants to check something at lunch. There are also kids who work better listening to music. We could just empower teachers to regulate their classrooms based on individual observations, rather than ridiculously demonizing one device that represents one piece of a problem that only some kids have. The propaganda on the evils of phones is out of control.

Absolutely not. Teachers have enough to do. I’m not about to make 150 “ Individual observations” So that I can determine how good/bad each student is when using their phone. Either the phones are on or the phones are off. That’s the rules.

You can't tell who is creating a problem in your classroom? Isn't the impetus for this whole Yondr madness premised on the idea that we know that cell phones are the problem staring us down but teachers are somehow powerless to tell those kids to get off their phones? And therefore we need magic pouches to do what humans cannot, despite humans infallibly identifying the problem before them? If you can't even figure out who is the problem, why are we sure it is cell phones and not the computers handed to each kid by FCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My principal was clear that in a true emergency the pouches can be cut open.

But really, phones ruin classrooms 100% of days and true emergencies are exceedingly rare. Worth the trade off, IMO.

How do phones ruin the classroom. Unless they are blasting music or causing a disturbance what is the problem?

Really? You can’t figure it out in your own? If students are scrolling and on their phones the entire time, how much do you think they’re actually paying attention to instruction?

There is a big difference between a kid who is in constant scroll and a kid who wants to check something at lunch. There are also kids who work better listening to music. We could just empower teachers to regulate their classrooms based on individual observations, rather than ridiculously demonizing one device that represents one piece of a problem that only some kids have. The propaganda on the evils of phones is out of control.

Absolutely not. Teachers have enough to do. I’m not about to make 150 “ Individual observations” So that I can determine how good/bad each student is when using their phone. Either the phones are on or the phones are off. That’s the rules.

You can't tell who is creating a problem in your classroom? Isn't the impetus for this whole Yondr madness premised on the idea that we know that cell phones are the problem staring us down but teachers are somehow powerless to tell those kids to get off their phones? And therefore we need magic pouches to do what humans cannot, despite humans infallibly identifying the problem before them? If you can't even figure out who is the problem, why are we sure it is cell phones and not the computers handed to each kid by FCPS?

Oh it's both, but since ed tech is supposed to be the savior (aka it's supposed to be cheaper than teachers) Gatehouse will never remove the laptops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

It is pretty clear from reading this thread that outreach to parents would do nothing.

+ 183,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://wamu.org/story/24/09/03/robinson-secondary-school-fairfax-virginia-cellphone-pilot-program/

It's working

This article is not even about the Yondr pouch, it is about Robinson using the much more sensible policy of having kids put their phones in a shoe holder at the front of the class, which is something any teacher could do and many were already doing. Yondr is an expensive lockbox that is not limited to instructional time. Apples and oranges. And, seriously, a week of anecdotal self-selecting blurbs is hardly reliable data to show it's "working" -- whatever that means. Form a hypothesis, define how you'll measure it, test it against a control, and transparently report what the measurements in each group were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You must not have a kid who is constantly working around parental controls....I don't either but I know kids who do.

When is the last time you tried to hack around the controls? I have tried. “Downtime” is pretty effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You must not have a kid who is constantly working around parental controls....I don't either but I know kids who do.

When is the last time you tried to hack around the controls? I have tried. “Downtime” is pretty effective.

Not on an Android phone...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://wamu.org/story/24/09/03/robinson-secondary-school-fairfax-virginia-cellphone-pilot-program/

It's working

This article is not even about the Yondr pouch, it is about Robinson using the much more sensible policy of having kids put their phones in a shoe holder at the front of the class, which is something any teacher could do and many were already doing. Yondr is an expensive lockbox that is not limited to instructional time. Apples and oranges. And, seriously, a week of anecdotal self-selecting blurbs is hardly reliable data to show it's "working" -- whatever that means. Form a hypothesis, define how you'll measure it, test it against a control, and transparently report what the measurements in each group were.

It’s about both, if you actually read the article.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am surprised that we had to pay money for a technology solution when parents could simply be asked to help enforce the no phone policy by using the downtime feature on applicable phones.

Outreach with parents would be a lot cheaper than this.

My kid isn’t getting in trouble for having his phone out because I lock it down during school hours. An email from the principal suggesting this would probably be pretty effective.

You must not have a kid who is constantly working around parental controls....I don't either but I know kids who do.

When is the last time you tried to hack around the controls? I have tried. “Downtime” is pretty effective.

Not on an Android phone...

Great, most people don’t have those. The point is that there are tools that some parents can use to help the school system enforce the no phone policy. Maybe try socializing those and educating parents before spending more money on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://wamu.org/story/24/09/03/robinson-secondary-school-fairfax-virginia-cellphone-pilot-program/

It's working

This article is not even about the Yondr pouch, it is about Robinson using the much more sensible policy of having kids put their phones in a shoe holder at the front of the class, which is something any teacher could do and many were already doing. Yondr is an expensive lockbox that is not limited to instructional time. Apples and oranges. And, seriously, a week of anecdotal self-selecting blurbs is hardly reliable data to show it's "working" -- whatever that means. Form a hypothesis, define how you'll measure it, test it against a control, and transparently report what the measurements in each group were.

It’s about both, if you actually read the article.

Be kind to PP; the article was long and reading all of it is hard.