GETTYSBURG, SD. (KELO) — The Gettysburg School District saw a trend and made a decision.
“That’s what today’s culture is, you are dependent upon your cell phones,” middle and high school principal Wendy Smith said. “And when you’re educating kids, we don’t need those distractions.”
“Before this year, it was basically, we don’t want to see it, we don’t want to hear it,” superintendent Amber Mikkelsen said. “As long as it’s out of sight, out of mind, and we can focus on class, that’s what matters.”
But now, middle schoolers and high schoolers lock up their cell phones during the school day in pouches; magnets are able to unlock the pouches when kids leave. Mikkelsen says it’s a welcomed change.
“Really, it’s been a very positive response in our local community,” Mikkelsen said. “I think most of our parents and even the students realize it’s definitely, I think they’re feeling a little bit of relief, honestly, that they can just focus on one thing, and they don’t have to be trying to be over-stimulated and multi-tasking all the time.”
Mikkelsen says the school board’s decision to implement the new policy was unanimous. The policy went into effect with the beginning of the new school year on Aug. 21.
“The kids I don’t think realized how much their phones were distracting them during school,” Smith said.
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Middle school math teacher Christy Saltsman, who also teaches physical education for middle and elementary school, strongly supports the move.
“I love the cell phone policy,” Saltsman said. “The kids are so much more focused in the classroom. They’re not worried about their phone going off and buzzing and who’s messaging me.”
Visitors will find a similar review from Sarah McClure, who teaches agriculture to middle and high schoolers. She’d like the policy to extend well beyond Gettysburg.
“I highly support it,” McClure said. “It should definitely be a policy that happens at every school. The kids, they have enhanced engagement, more face-to-face communication. As much as they might complain about it ahead of time, they’re really not bothered by it, and I just see a positive difference.”
“Any feedback that I’ve had from our students has been that, ‘Hey, I actually got my homework done, and I kind of hate to admit it but it was actually probably because I wasn’t tempted to check my phone all the time,’ and things like that, and so I’m impressed with our students,” Mikkelsen said.
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Phones can become unlocked if it’s for an educational purpose with the teacher’s blessing. But in Gettysburg, the educational strategy is clear: phones are on the sideline.
“I just love going through the halls and seeing the kids converse rather than on their cell phones or have their ear buds in and not listening to anybody, so just that part of it with the high schoolers is so much better,” Saltsman said.
“We are teaching them to be responsible by showing them that boundaries are good, turning it off is okay, that you will survive and you actually can be more efficient with your homework,” Mikkelsen said.
