RPS has new plan to keep kids off their phones during class

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - Richmond Public Schools has a new plan to keep kids off their phones during class.

It’s the second division in our area to test locking up devices in pouches like these.

Hopewell Public Schools introduced these small, gray, personal cellphone pouches where students put their phones in at school last year. The pouches have magnetic locks that only the administration can open. Students can have their phones on their person, but only if they remain in the pouch.

“A child could say, “I have to put mines in a pouch”, but at George Wythe, we’re on our phones constantly. I don’t think that’s right,” mom Tisha Erby said. “I feel like it should be all. If it’s going to be at one school, then it should be for all.”

Erby has five kids who go to various Richmond Public Schools.

“I’m ok with it,” Erby said. “But just in case of emergencies, how would that work?”

Starting in January, RPS will test cell phone pouches to keep more than 4,000 students at six different schools off their phones.

The schools include Dogwood, Martin Luther King, Jr. and River City middle school, as well as Huguenot, John Marshall, and Open High schools.

“Say, for instance, you’re paying all of this money for these pouches for each individual kid, and kids lose things,” Erby said.

Some school board members say taking away the distraction of cell phones in school could help with students’ overall mental health as well as improve the learning environment.

“It’s a threat to our students’ welfare because often students are invited to participated in fights, invitations to cyber-bullying and a lot of our students have been unfortunately victim to cyberbullying, body shaming with often fake Instagram accounts,” RPS school board member Jonathan Young said.

Young said this will cost the division about $75,000, and it’ll start the second students walk in the doors.

“They’ll insert their phones into that magnetic pouch, and it’ll stay in that metal seal until the end of the day when they depart.”

Young said he thinks this will provide immediate relief to teachers and students when it comes to concerns of violence and bullying.

“We’ve experienced a significant increase as it relates to folks threatening self-harm, so it’s our objective to address this at its root cause,” he said.

Young said this pilot initiative for these six schools would last a semester. Then he said depending on how it goes, they most likely will expand it to all Richmond Public Schools.

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