Please see the email below, sent on behalf of the Sedgwick Middle School PTO. 

Dear caregivers,

Phones, social media, and extensive screen time are distracting our students at school and having negative impacts on their mental health, and social development. The Anxious Generation and Screenagers show this.

Last week, five Sedgwick parents spoke to the Board of Education about limiting phones—and non-educational screen time—in schools.

Please consider attending (and speaking) at the last Board Meeting on June 3rd at 7pm to show broader support for this issue. The meeting is at Town Hall in the Chamber Room on the 3rd floor. Concerned parents are encouraged to sign up to speak for 3 minutes at the beginning or end of the meeting. 

Here were our key points:

• Bell-to-Bell Cellphone Ban: A bell-to-bell ban means that phones are off-and-away (eg in lockers) from the first bell of the day to the dismissal bell. While the elementary and middle schools currently (to our knowledge) have an off-and-away policy for phones during the school day, that is not true at the high schools. 

• We asked the board to move to a bell-to-bell no phone policy for all WHPS (similar to what New York is enacting in 2025-2026). 

• Main Board Concern: Parent pushback re: safety / access to their children

• Ability to Monitor Chromebook Use: Teachers have little way to actively monitor chromebooks, so many students are using school-issued devices for games, YouTube, etc.

•   We also asked for a program like Securly or GoGuardian to give teachers more visibility and control over what students are doing on the devices during the day.   

• Parent Jonathan Rheaume put it best when he said, "When teachers have to become the phone police, it degrades their relationship with students," and "If I can have tools to monitor and limit screen time at home, why can't teachers?"

• Main Board Concern: Cost

• Focus v. Distracted Learning: When students access phones between classes or games/ YouTube during classes, it can take up to 23 minutes to refocus on their next task. This is not only true for them, but also for a student sitting next to them. The ability to focus and work deeply (cf. Cal Newport's Deep Work) is a power skill we are losing. 

• Impaired Social Development: A parent who also teaches at UConn noted that her students have lost basic social abilities (eye contact, holding conversations, being present). Due to this, she has banned cellphones in her class and moved to no-tech learning experiences. 

• Urgency: Connecticut schools are supposed to have plans in place for the 2026-2027 school year to address phones in schools. Board meetings over the next 4-6 months are the best place and time to get our voices heard.

• Main Board Concern: Having a policy by Fall of 2025 is too fast. Sub-Committee will meet in August. Realistically, they can aim to pass a policy in Oct. 2025 with implementation perhaps in Jan. 2026.

Board member Gayle Harris followed up with our team, and highlights included (Below and above):

• Parents, teachers, and administrators are *all* encouraged to attend Board of Ed meetings regularly and speak up about desired changes. The Policy Sub-Committee noticed our recent attendance, and our comments are relevant to their present debate. Above all, the Board needs broad support from the community to overcome expected resistance to changes in policies.

• Please attend the last Board of Ed meeting on June 3 at 7pm in Town Hall.  Please share your experiences and speak in favor of digital technology restrictions. Consider bringing academic literature showing the harms of digital technology in classrooms. 

Thank you for your support!

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