(students chatting) - [Steph] If something looks off about this hallway full of teenagers in 2024, it's that not one of them is looking down at a phone.

(bell ringing) At Central Falls High School in Rhode Island's tiniest city in the urban core, an experiment has been underway since October 1st.

- Life at this school changed forever on that day.

- [Steph] That's when the school fully banned cell phones and other personal electronics, like headphones and smartwatches, requiring students lock the devices in these pouches from the company Yondr for the entire school day.

- So I can't get in here.

- Yeah, you can only open it with- - Testing it out.

- With a magnet.

- [Steph] The pouches unlock with these devices, held by staff and also mounted on walls at the end of the school day.

Dr. Deloris Davis Grant, a longtime English and drama teacher, says this was necessary.

- Cell phones were the scourge of this building.

They were such a problem!

You'd have students texting underneath the desk, asking to go to the bathroom, but really, they're going to make phone calls.

Bosses calling them to tell them their work schedule.

Parents calling.

- Even though we had a no cell phone policy, teachers were having a really difficult time enforcing it.

- [Steph] There were several problems Principal Bob McCarthy says that led school leaders to contemplate a new cell phone policy.

- I think one is the distraction in terms of learning and then also, we found a lot of conflicts generated through kids texting or using social media to generate, you know, somebody said somebody about something.

Oh, let's meet in the bathroom.

We'll resolve this.

- After the pandemic, it was awful because they were so used to being on the phone every hour.

- [Steph] Plenty of schools don't let students on their phone during class, but Central Falls went a step further.

The devices are banned even in the hallways and the lunchroom.

- We did allow cell phones in the lunchroom before this policy, but from a logistical standpoint, for kids to come in to unlock their pouches for 20 minutes, then to lock them, we knew that there would be problems where kids would not.

- [Steph] We visited the cafeteria recently and found students actually talking to each other.

That included Pedro Gomez De Aza, who says, at first, he wasn't so sure about locking up his phone.

- I was like, no way I'm doing that.

Putting my phone away for the whole day.

I was like, what if I have an emergency or what if I just don't want to put my phone on the pouch and just have it on me?

- [Steph] But about five months into the total cell phone ban, he's come around.

- It's been good for me because putting my phone away in school has taught me to put my phone away outside of school.

Before, I would just sit in a class and be on my phone and now, not having my phone on me has taught me to find any sort of productive thing to do.

- [Steph] The stakes are high to get things right at Central Falls High School, which has a low graduation rate and some of the lowest English and math test scores in the state.

97% of the students are economically disadvantaged, according to the Rhode Island Department of Education, and more than half are English language learners.

Many students have jobs outside of school, something else that can distract them from class.

- What we say, and I know it kind of sounds cheesy, but your work right now is here at school.

That's your job.

- It put me in a precarious situation when they would say, "My boss is gonna call.

Is it okay if I take the phone call?"

What am I gonna say?

- [Steph] Students do have access to technology during the day in Central Falls, The school provides Chromebooks, one for each student, which they can use for assignments or research.

- You need to write this in your notes 'cause this is gonna come into play.

Can an ordinary man do that?

- [Students] No.

- [Steph] Dr. Grant says she's seen a huge difference since the personal electronics went away.

- The students in my classes all got higher grades.

I feel like they were more communicative, looking me straight in the eye, talking with other students.

I heard the chatter out in the hallways of students talking to each other, communicating in a lively manner.

I really enjoyed that.

That's one of the things that changed.

- [Steph] The Yondr pouches are starting to catch on with middle schools in Providence also using them, but they're not for everyone.

Just one town over from Central Falls in Lincoln, Assistant Superintendent Kevin McNamara doesn't support a total cell phone ban.

- I don't think that models what happens in the real world.

I think if you look at adults, adults need to learn to manage their cell phones, whether they're in a workplace environment, whether they're working with their families.

- [Steph] Before McNamara was Assistant Superintendent, he was principal of Lincoln High School.

He implemented a more permissive cell phone policy in 2013 that's still in effect today.

- We moved to make possessing a cell phone or using a a cell phone outside of class time something that we weren't going to punish and I think one of the things that that did was it gave kids that modicum of responsibility and freedom that they really value.

And for the most part, kids are gonna follow the rules and kids are gonna rise to the level of expectations that adults have for them.

So I've never regretted that decision as a school administrator.

- [Steph] Under the policy, students can use their phones in the hallways or at lunch, but in class, they go in these caddies at the front of the room.

McNamara is not a fan of locking the phones up in case of emergency.

- I think at that point, a cell phone in the hand of a student in a classroom could provide valuable information that would be very helpful to first responders.

- [Steph] Principal McCarthy says that was part of the pushback to the policy in Central Falls.

- A lot of times, that type of communication could be detrimental to a school or community that's in lockdown.

We want to be able to control the information, not because we don't want people to know what's going to happen, but we don't want rumors spreading and we want one source of information happening.

- [Steph] Parents who need to reach their child in an emergency can call the school, McCarthy says, and there are exceptions for students with certain medical conditions.

- One of the things that we were worried about was the notion of addiction.

And so, we spent some time with our mental health support staff planning for what do we do for students when we enact this on October 1st who literally are addicted to their phones?

And we found, which I thought was really nice, is that we didn't have that many issues.

The kids were able to adjust.

- Do you see teenagers getting addicted to their smartphones?

- When we think about addiction, it becomes a very clinical term.

- [Steph] Dr. Tanuja Gandhi is a child psychiatrist at Bradley Hospital in East Providence.

Dr. Gandhi has researched the effects of teen smartphone use.

- It becomes addictive in a sense where you have difficulty cutting down on the time you're spending on that kind of device or digital media content or social media website.

It's harder and harder to not wait to see how many people have liked your picture or who's commenting on your blog or which friend of yours has gotten this new dress.

And I think the behavior around engaging in social media seems more and more addictive.

- [Steph] Dr. Gandhi says the ages of 10 to 19 are critical for brain development and there's a growing body of evidence tying social media use to anxiety and depression in teens.

- We do know that you have to provide robust learning experiences and a rich environment for a child to grow and learn different skills during that age.

If children are spending a lot of time on social media or on their phones or on just any kind of digital platform, does it take away from the time they could be spending learning?

That's one of the questions we have.

There isn't enough evidence to say, you know, there's going to be a long-term impact because we don't have data to indicate that there's like, this impact in like, 40, 50 years.

- [Steph] In Central Falls, this experiment is still new.

The school district spent $27,000 to buy Yondr pouches for the high school and middle school, but there aren't ongoing costs to keep it going.

Principal McCarthy says students will always find a way to get around the rules.

- There are ways that kids know how to undo their pouch.

You can go on YouTube and figure out how to do that fairly quickly.

But the pouch is almost symbolic of the notion of the habit or the expectation that it's more important that the phones are away, but we do need to use the pouches to basically reinforce that.

- [Steph] And Pedro Gomez says plenty of students are still not on board.

- My friends were like, hell no.

I'm not putting my phone in the pouch.

- Have they come around?

- I don't think so.

(laughs) - [Steph] But all laughter aside, Pedro offers some serious advice for his peers.

- For the students that think that being on your phone all day is gonna get you anywhere, there's a lot more to life than just sitting on your phone and you're not gonna find out if you just keep scrolling.