Gov. Lamont, CT leaders want cellphones out of classrooms. One local school is using ‘Yondr Pouches’

For many kids these days, cellphones are a constant companion, including at school, but Gov. Ned Lamont wants to change that.

Whether used by adults or children, the phones have become a 24-7 distraction and an ever-present staple of American life.

One Connecticut middle school has launched a pilot program to keep the phones out of the classroom.

Lamont and state Attorney General William Tong visited the Illing Middle School in Manchester on Tuesday to highlight the success of the program that has removed the ubiquitous distraction for seventh and eighth-graders.

The phones are kept in special, locked pouches all day long, and the students keep the pouches with them.

“If you were to walk around the building, you would not see a phone in this place — not in the classrooms, not in the cafeteria, not in the hallways,” said Matthew Geary, the Manchester schools superintendent. “Probably more than in any other space you walk to, the kids’ heads are up as they are walking by.”

Lamont brought major attention to the issue last month when he mentioned it during his State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly on opening day of the 2024 legislative session.

Lamont told the standing-room-only crowd that “severe anxiety and aberrant behavior can be traced back to social media.”

Capturing the attention of legislators, Lamont continued, “Social media is often anti-social, and too much smartphone makes you stupid.”

In an attempt to improve the situation, Lamont said the best way was to take a “little bit from China and a little bit from Beyoncé.”

In China, children are limited in using TikTok to only one hour each day. At concerts by superstar Beyoncé, fans must place their phones in a “Yondr Pouch” — a special sleeve that locks magnetically and prevents use.

“We will be sending out guidance to your school board — have your younger students leave their smartphones at home or drop them in a Yondr pouch at the start of every school day,” Lamont said during the State of the State address.

Lamont is seeking legislation, under Senate Bill 14, that would create a model policy for cellphone use. The policy would then be considered by the local school boards, which run the public schools.

The bill states that the state school board, every five years, should revise “a model policy on the use of cellular mobile telephones and other mobile electronic devices, ” and ”such policy shall consider the various needs of students, such as age and grade level, and include appropriate enforcement provisions.”

The policy would be published on the state Board of Education website.

On Tuesday, Lamont and Tong saw the Yondr pouches in action as students had them at the middle school that has been conducting the pilot program.

“How has the atmosphere changed in the last two months?” Lamont asked as he sat in a classroom with students in front of him.

“We have kids that are more engaged, as reported by our staff,” the superintendent responded. “There is a certain addiction. Definitely an adjustment period. We’re looking forward to focusing on learning. … Way less social media chatter during the day. Overall, it’s a positive climate.”

Asked by Tong, school board chairman Chris Pattacini responded that the board had some initial pushback from concerned parents.

“We did have parents who were concerned about being able to get in touch with their children in the event of a security issue,” Pattacini said. “That’s certainly a valid concern. … Right now, the phones are out of sight and out of mind. They may or may not have a phone on them, but it’s not disrupting the classroom. That’s the key. … They’re going to go to high school. They’re going to graduate. They’re going to go get a job. They have to be able to manage that addiction of the cell phone.”

Tong said he has personal experience with social media and phone use because he has three children between the ages of 12 and 17.

“We’re really concerned about those platforms, especially Instagram and TikTok, and videos and messages that don’t make us feel good about ourselves,” Tong told the students. “Images of people that are obviously super-fit, beautiful, attractive, and don’t look like us and they’re unnaturally fit. For a lot of us, that can make us feel bad about ourselves.”

Asked if the program will be expanded to Manchester High School, Geary said, “I think we’ll have a conversation about that.”

High schoolers, he said, have different issues as they often have part-time jobs and need to be in contact with their employers.

The overall cost of the program is $30,000 to purchase 1,000 to 1,200 Yondr pouches, along with special magnets that are used to unlock them. The school system owns the pouches and will collect them at the end of the school year so that they can be redistributed to incoming students in the next school year.

The middle school distributed a two-sided flier on the “pouch progress” that cited an influential article from The Atlantic magazine on the subject.

“Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011,” said the article by Jean M. Twenge, a California psychology professor and author. “It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.”

Asked by a veteran television reporter if he learned anything Tuesday from the students about his own cellphone use, Lamont laughed and quipped, “I think I’m a little addicted myself sometimes. But at least I’m not William Tong who came in with two phones on the desk.”

Courant staff writer Alison Cross contributed to this report.

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com