More Schools Are Banning Phones — But They Won't Succeed Without Enforcement
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder applauds the growing trend of phone bans while warning that policies without enforcement are meaningless.
Key Takeaways
- A policy is only as good as its enforcement - Writing a phone ban policy is easy; actually enforcing it requires daily commitment
- Schools fail when they half-commit - Bans that allow exceptions or lack consequences for violations quickly fall apart
- Full commitment is required - Successful phone-free schools have zero tolerance, consistent consequences, and administrative backing
Transcript
Schools are banning cell phones, which is a great development, but a lot of them are making a mistake, especially around the timing.
Like I saw that Los Angeles Unified is going to be banning cell phones, but not until January 2025.
And I thought, why wait until the school year is already underway, expectations have already been established, routines are already put in place.
Why wait till the middle of the year when it's going to be really, really difficult to stop students from using their cell phones.
It is much, much easier to implement a change like that at the beginning of the school year.
And I think I know why they did it.
I think part of the missing piece for Los Angeles is simply that they don't have consequences in place.
They don't have an existing enforcement mechanism really for any of the rules.
And you can tell me if you're in LAUSD what the options are.
But if we already have a system where kids don't have to follow the rules and there are no real consequences, like we don't have detention, we don't have in-school suspension, do you have these things?
Let me know.
Kids have to know right out of the gate what the consequence is going to be if we're going to enforce a rule.
And I have to give a lot of credit to our local schools.
I mean, there are just lots of places that have never had a problem with this because the consequences have been clear and strict from day one, like in-school suspension or out-of-school suspension if you have your cell phone out.
It seems harsh, but if you're clear on that and you follow through, you actually never have to give those consequences or hardly ever because it's predictable.
What does not work is to say, well, we don't want the kids to experience the negative consequences of their consequences.
We don't want them to go on their permanent record.
We don't want them to miss learning.
So maybe we'll just not have a consequence or maybe we'll just not enforce the consequences and we'll just hope that that does the job kids are way too smart for that kids are rational in ways that we often don't give them credit for and they will realize if we don't mean what we say so i'm glad we're banning cell phones and i've got a twitter roundup of all the places france and british columbia and Florida and Illinois and Virginia and Indiana.
Like there are all these places, maybe not Illinois, there are all these places where cell phones are at least being talked about being banned from the classroom.
And I think that's a really good thing.
But we have to think through what are the consequences going to be because kids will not do it.
They will not listen.
They will not keep their cell phones put away if there is no consequence.
Let me know what you think.