Students hate being separated from their cellphones at school, and they are saying so in sometimes dramatic ways.

More than 100 Atholton High School students walked out of their classes last week in protest of Howard County’s two-week-old ban on cellphones. And when a Baltimore middle school forced students to put their phones in locking pouches, administrators found some of the pouches torn to shreds on bathroom floors.

Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School senior Nehemiah Peterson expressed the view that many students hold about having their phones locked up during the day.

“Honestly, I feel like that would be a violation. You don’t have the right to take my property that my parent or guardian paid for,” said Peterson, whose school has not yet enacted a cellphone policy, in an interview.

But school systems in the Baltimore area are holding firm. After more than a decade of fighting for their students’ attention, districts have begun saying enough is enough in the past several months and are forcing students to turn them off, put them out of sight and, at some schools, lock them away in pouches or cages.

The surprising result? Students who have lived under the policies say it may be tough medicine, but it is actually good for them.

In a Baltimore City Public Schools’ poll of more than 1,000 students whose schools piloted a strict no-phones policy, three-quarters said they concentrate more in class and 70% said it was easier to learn. And 68% said their grades have improved, although the city won’t know for sure if that is true until the semester grades are tabulated in later this spring.

But beyond academics, more than half of students also reported that they talked to other people at school more often and that their mental health had improved.

The city school board will vote later this spring on a district-wide policy that may be most stringent in the area.

It calls for all phones to be powered off and secured in a locker or in a central area of the school for middle schoolers. High school students would need to have them secured in their lockers. Students would not be allowed to look at their phones between the first and last bell of the day, and not in hallways between classes, during lunch or recess. The rule would apply to smartwatches, too.

Some schools have already tried out similar rules. When Ben Mosley, principal of Glenmount Elementary/Middle School first started trying to wrestle phones away from his middle school students two years ago, he didn’t have a lot of success.

He spent thousands of dollars on Yondr pouches, which work this way: Students load their phones into the pouches at the front door every morning when they enter school. The pouches are locked by an administrator and then handed back to the students, who can carry them around during the day. They are then unlocked before students walk out the door.

But students found ways to break into the pouches. “Within a month, they were getting destroyed,” Mosley said, explaining that the pouches were showing up torn in bathrooms. Students were also taking decoy phones to school to put in the pouches and keeping their real phones in their pockets or book bags. “It became ineffective,” Mosley said.

This year, Glenmount joined 20 other schools in the district’s no-cellphone pilot this school year and used a more strategic approach. Mosley told students they had to have their phones turned off and put away. “The minute we see it out, that is when we put it in Yondr and we hold it for the day,” he said. They have lost no Yondr pouches.

He said about four or five phones are confiscated every day from sixth through eighth graders.

Students, Mosley said, are “more engaged. They are more tuned in. You can see it in their academics. Less time off task, less behavior issues inside the classrooms. Teachers are able to teach more.”

Howard County school officials are hoping to see those benefits soon. The system recently adopted a similar policy that requires students to have their devices silenced and put away from the first bell to the last bell of the day.

Howard County Public School System Communications Director Brian Bassett, said some students don’t like the new policy and are upset they aren’t allowed to use their phones during lunch, as they have in the past.

“School administrators have indicated that while enforcement during lunch and between classes can be challenging, it has gone very well so far,” Bassett said.

Nearby school systems have been less strict.

In Anne Arundel County, students must have their phones turned off and out of sight during the day in elementary and middle school, but high schoolers are allowed to use them during lunch. Rather than have them locked away, students can store them in their backpacks. Bob Mosier, a spokesman for the school system, said the school system is not contemplating taking additional restrictions.

Baltimore County schools requires students’ phones to be turned off or silenced and put away during class, but high school students can use them during lunch and middle school principals can decide whether to offer the same privilege.

Seventeen schools are piloting more restrictions this year, and Superintendent Myriam Rogers is expected to propose changes in the cellphone policy later this spring.

Shawnette Williams, principal of Reginald F. Lewis High School in Baltimore, said the school had success in curbing phone use because staff spent months preparing students and parents for the shift. Students were concerned they wouldn’t be able to use their phones for research, so she made laptops more available, she said.

Since December her school has required students to put their cellphones in a Yondr pouch. Every pouch is numbered, and each student is given a key tag with a number on it so that at the end of the day, they can get their phone back. The Yondr pouches are put into a caged cart that is locked.

Before the rules went into effect, students pushed back, ripping up the policy when it was handed to them on a paper. But, she said, students have now mostly accepted the policy.

“Teachers say the kids are more focused in class, that they get more work done,” Williams said.

Both she and Mosley reported there have been fewer fights and disruptions in their schools. Before cellphones were put away for the day, students could text each other to set up confrontations, they said.

Students who break the cellphone use rules will face consequences, said Kelvin Moore, the deputy chief of schools. The punishment will depend on the frequency and severity of the infraction, he said.

It’s not just students who have concerns. Parents have told the school board that they want to be able to get in touch with their children if there is an emergency. Moore said the school district is committed to ensuring that parents will get communications from the school when there is an issue, like text messages, robocalls and website updates. In addition, he said, parents will know the form and frequency of communication during an emergency so they won’t have to check multiple places.

During a lockdown, he said, it can be dangerous for devices to be going off when a room is supposed to be silent.

Moore said the policy is likely to take effect next school year, so the hope is that the board will adopt it by June.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.