Fresno Unified’s phone policy is 20 years old. Teachers say they can’t teach, need support

Fresno High social studies teacher Peter Beck has been trying a new approach to prevent his students from being distracted by phones during class. He spent last year’s teaching material budget on three chargers, each with ten USB ports, and some cords.

“When we come in, here’s my expectation, you’re going to hook up your phone to a charger. They will be up there for the duration of the class period. I will stop with three minutes to go, you can go and get your phones,” Beck said he tells his students.

But some students have refused to set their phones aside for charging. He acknowledges that technically speaking they have the “right to refuse, because there’s no policy.” But if they refuse to stop using their smartphones in class, he can call it “willful defiance,” which is against the rules.

In one case, a student refused to cooperate and he called the campus safety assistant and the vice principal. The disruption tied up class for 25 minutes, and the whole class had to move to another room to restore teaching, he told The Bee. He talked to the student’s parents, then he suspended the student for two days, only from his class, and allowed the student to catch up on assignments.

“It shouldn’t have to get to that point. I haven’t dealt with phone issues since then because I’m afraid to trigger another (incident),” he said. “I just need some guidance so I know what to do. I don’t feel like (district) would back me up if I do anything, because there’s no clear policy.”

“I still have half the class that refuses to plug in their phones. I can’t go to my principal. I can’t go to anybody,” he continued. “When I try to do something with the phone, teachers are like, ‘Come on, the kid is not a bad kid,’ and the administration is like, ‘You know, you don’t really have guidance on what to do from the district.’ And if I have to call every parent whose kid was on the phone ... I’d be working all night.”

Students are checking their phones all the time during class, teachers told The Fresno Bee, but other than constantly reminding them to put their phones away, many teachers aren’t sure what to do because there is no district-wide guidance or support for teachers to discipline students who violate the rules. In fact, a district-wide policy banning “portable communication devices” in Fresno Unified classrooms is now 20 years old, before smartphones and social media companies took hold in society.

Teachers told The Bee they were concerned that strictly enforcing phone use would either antagonize the student or the parent for potentially criticizing their parenting skills. Grabbing phones from students might be considered improperly touching their property. They also point out that grading is supposed to be based on a student’s academic achievement and not their behavior, according to the grading guideline from the California department of education.

‘A bit outdated’

The first smartphone model, an iPhone, also known as the iPhone 2G, was released in June 2007. The Instagram app was launched in 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012. The TikTok app entered the U.S. market in 2017.

The current policy, in the 2023-24 Parent-Student handbook, was effective Jan. 2004. It says high school and middle school students can have “portable communication devices” on campus and with them during school-sponsored activities, but they must keep them turned off and out of sight during class. It also says elementary school students are not permitted to possess or use “portable communication devices” on campuses.

Fresno Unified spokesperson A.J. Kato told The Bee in emails last Friday that an updated policy is in the works for next school year’s handbook. She did not provide any other details about any changes to the policy. The Bee also contacted the school board president and the superintendent’s office in emails on Thursday for this article.

District spokesperson Nikki Henry told the Bee in an email response that schools and teachers can create their own specific guidelines: “... policies are the minimum threshold set for the entire district and schools have the authority to build upon these policies for what works best at their campuses.”

New Fresno school board President Susan Wittrup acknowledged in an email response that the current policy is “a bit outdated,” and she said the board is looking forward to reviewing an updated policy. She said she encourages teachers to work with their site leaders and instructional superintendents to explore different strategies to minimize student distraction to the learning.

Students know it’s not enforced

Manuel Bonilla, president of the Fresno Teachers Association, said that there is not enough accountability for student behavior regarding smartphones, sending the wrong message about the value of instructional time.

“If the culture is not to hold things accountable, what happens is that everything kind of gets pushed down to the people lower,” he said. “Guidelines are important because what it points to is what we value. Whether about other things or cell phones, the message, though it’s implicit, is we don’t value and respect instructional time.”

The Bee spoke to another veteran high school teacher who said he cites the 2004 policy at the beginning of each semester to remind students to put their phones “out of sight, out of mind” during class. But he also acknowledged that students know the district won’t enforce the policy with any consequences.

The high school instructor, with 30-plus years of experience, asked not to be identified because he’s not authorized to speak to The Bee about district policy. He said that with each passing year, smartphones become more visible and distracting in class. He said many students now act as if placing the phones face down on the desk, even atop coursework, is being polite. He said that he has had to walk up to students to ask them to put away their phones six or seven times during a 54-minute lesson. He said it’s common for four or five students in each class he teaches to spend the entire class just focusing on their screens, and wearing earbuds, even when they’re approached. He said he can hear the music still playing through their earbuds.

Some schools creating rules

Some schools in Fresno are taking novel initiatives to regulate cell phone access in the classroom. Bullard High School has implemented a “Yondr Pouch” program that requires students to lock their mobile phones in a pouch and use specialized unlock equipment to release the phone.

Hoover High School enforces a rigorous, school-wide phone-free policy. Students can keep their phones on them, but if they take the device out during class, teachers notify campus security and the vice principal comes in. They either give the phone to the vice principal or the student leaves class.

“It’s working because the principal is pushing it, he physically walks up to the student and asks if ‘You would like to give it to the teacher or give it to me?’ and later he reaches out to that teacher, ‘How come you are letting the student use it,‘ ” said Patrick Sauceda, a special education instructor at Hoover High School.

Because there are no district-wide guidelines, the more common situation is that most schools and teachers don’t have the support to regulate phone use. It can become an overwhelming task, especially for teachers because they have to become the rule creators and enforcers, and all the responsibility and consequences fall on individuals, says Bonilla.

“Teachers don’t have the incentives to enforce banning phones, they are torn between satisfying the parents, being very careful about what they say, and doing their job,” said Ofir Turel, a professor in behavioral and managerial issues in technology addiction, formerly teaching at the California State University, Fullerton, before he joined the University of Melbourne. “They try to walk the fine line, which is difficult.”

Learning can’t always be fun, and with phones present, teachers are exhausted to compete with cell phones for students’ attention, said Beck, the Fresno High social studies teachers, and other educators interviewed by The Bee.

“I’m like 75% entertainer because I have to keep the attention of the Nintendo generation,” said Beck. “The district does nothing to discuss the cell phone policy. It could be as simple as that last year we had kids get hit by cars so we got to campaign ‘Hey be careful when you’re out there,’ how about ‘Hey let’s put the cell phones away.’ ”