Poised to spend $5 million to lock up students’ cell phones, Philly schools pause on the purchase

The Philadelphia School District has delayed a vote on a $5 million contract to buy pouches that keep students’ cell phones locked up during classes.

Officials had been poised to adopt a five-year pact with Yondr Inc., a San Francisco-based company that makes the individual, sealed magnetic pouches that limit students’ access to their phones during instructional time.

But Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. pulled the school board resolution last week that would have awarded the contract to allow — but not compel — all schools to buy the pouches to create “cell-free school zones.”

» READ MORE: Philly schools will vote to spend $5 million to keep students’ cell phones locked up

The contract as drafted would have cost the school system up to $5 million, but the actual purchase amount would depend on the number of schools that opt into the Yondr system. Schools that choose to purchase the pouches would pay for them out of their own discretionary budgets.

School board president Joyce Wilkerson said at the school board meeting that Watlington wanted an opportunity to discuss the potential purchase with school principals.

“Once we’ve had a chance to do that, we’ll reconsider at a later date,” Watlington said at the meeting, last Thursday.

While few disagree that cell phones are distractions that often impede learning, the contract has drawn criticism from some staffers and district-watchers who say the money should be spent elsewhere. Also, many people, including parents, think students need unfettered access to cell phones, especially given Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis.

At some schools where Yondr pouches already are used, administrators have said the devices have made significant positive changes, taking students’ attention away from their phones and putting it back on instruction and on positive social interactions with one another.

But teachers at one district school where they’ve been in use for more than a year say the pouches, while helpful at first, are now virtually useless. After what they assumed was a redesign, the pouches can now easily be defeated by banging them on a hard surface a few times.

» READ MORE: To ban or not to ban the cell phone? Without them, schools see more learning, fewer fights, and calmer hallways.

Prior to the district’s systemwide proposal, this high school paid for pouches for all of its students, but “at this point, we’re almost not even using them,” one teacher said. “In class, maybe four or five kids will have them. Everyone else just has their phones out. This seems like a really irresponsible purchase.”

Students at this high school must still place their phones in the pouches at the beginning of the school day, but it’s for show, said the teacher, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.

“We might as well have manila folders for how effective these pouches are,” the teacher said. “The phones are in their pockets, the phones are in their hoodies.”

Yondr is coming out with a new pouch in December, according to a school district spokesperson, which should address some of the tampering concerns. Schools that currently have pouches will get the new ones, she said.

Marissa Orbanek, the spokesperson, said the Yondr pouches are “one part of a multitiered approach to increasing student engagement. Whether students can lock or unlock the pouches, students are learning ... that it’s not appropriate to have their phones in their hands while at school or in class.”

But Yondr’s director of education partnerships said the pouches are “intentionally designed not to be indestructible. Rather it is a reminder that now is not the time or place to be engaging with your cell phone.”

Yondr pouches are used by many large school districts in the country, including in New York, Detroit, and Boston, said Julia Gustafson, director of education partnerships for Yondr. In Philadelphia, a little more than 50 schools, including charters, use the pouches, and 26 others are pending if the approval goes through, she said. The company also provides schools teacher training and support developing their phone policies.

Another teacher at the same school where Yondr pouches have been abused asked why the district would spend so much money on a nonproven technology.

“How can you have discretionary funds when you haven’t even taken care of necessities yet?” said the teacher. “I think they really should be spending the money on student services.”