BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders was at Ardis Ann Middle School in Bentonville on Aug. 8 to kick off the phone-free pilot program aimed at addressing youth mental health in the state.
In a speech to teachers and school district leaders, Sanders said that 180 of the state’s 237 school districts have signed up for the phone-free schools initiative.
“Our phone free school program is a great first step to promoting it statewide, and it could not get here fast enough,” Sanders said. “Because our country has been experimenting with unregulated smartphone use for more than a decade, and unfortunately, the results have been absolutely devastating for our young people.”
In July, Sanders announced that the state would be working to address youth depression, anxiety, and isolation after speaking with a group of school superintendents. In order to do so, the state said it would look at restricting in-school phone use and focusing on mental health care.
Sanders added that the state will not only offer districts funding to purchase pouches for students to securely store their phones, but also provide grants to support telehealth mental health services.
“I know that it will have a positive effect on our schools, and I can say that with complete and total confidence,” Sanders said, “Because several schools have already launched their own phone fee programs this school year, and the results have been better than we could have ever imagined.”
According to Sanders, one of the schools that has already tried going phone-free is Bentonville West High School. She said the Bentonville School District has led the way in trying to curb this issue.
“Verbal and physical aggression offenses fell 57%, drug related offenses dropped 51% and 86% of teachers saw increased student engagement, 77% saw improvements in classroom behavior,” Sanders said. “If that's not enough to encourage everyone, I don't know that we can find any statistics that will, it's incredibly compelling.”
Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva said given that each district has its own challenges, schedules, and make-up, the state is giving schools the flexibility to decide the type of storage containers they would want to store phones in.
Oliva said some districts are looking at individual pouches assigned to students, storage lockers in the front office, or a pouch in every single classroom where students can store their phones in a designated space.
Ardis Ann Middle School Principal Kevin McCauliffe said that his school is instituting a phone-free environment for the upcoming school year and looks forward to seeing the impact.
“There continues to be a lot of excitement as we see it come closer and closer to fruition,” McAuliffe said. “For teachers, it's not so much about active discipline problems that are happening in class. It's more about the sort of unseen distraction that we all know exists even when the phone is sitting in our bag.”
McAuliffe said that the school will be partnering with Yondr. The company sells individual storage pouches for electronic devices that can open and close once tapped on an unlocking base. He said he hopes to get the pouches by the end of September.
In the meantime, McAuliffe said the expectation will be for students to put their phone away in their bag during the day.
Sanders said this program isn't meant to take away from students, but instead give something back.
“One of the big things that we like to remind people, we're not taking anything away,” Sanders said. “We are actually giving our students and our kids the freedom to enjoy a phone-free education."
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