BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Bethlehem Area School Board wants to restrict cell phone access for students during the school day, but what that means for high schoolers remains to be seen.
At a Monday curriculum committee meeting, school directors talked about a proposed personal electronic device policy for next academic year that would stop students from using cell phones during the school day.
The board’s cell phone discussion came after a middle school teacher seemingly tried to wrestle a phone out of a student's hands in a video circulating online in March.
The district previously said it's investigating.
School Director Winston Alozie said the personal electronic device policy was not proposed “in response to things that have happened recently.”
The district said it has been working on developing the policy since the spring of 2023.
During Monday's discussion, at the suggestion of the district administration, the board entertained the idea of letting high school students use their phones in school hallways and cafeterias.
They did not consider the same privilege for younger students.
All students at all grade levels would be barred from using cell phones during class time, though, when devices should be out of sight, school directors said.
'A significant distraction'
Assistant Superintendent Maureen Leeson said the district is long overdue on updating the personal electronic device policy, which was drafted in 2004 — three years before the iPhone even hit the market.
Cell phones “are a significant distraction” to student learning, and they are “highly addictive,” Leeson said.
“I think high school is a different animal. When you get to be 17- [and] 18-years-old, if you can’t walk down the hallway with a cell phone, God help us as a society.”School Board President Michael Faccinetto
“We need to [have] appropriate restrictions in class, and we also need to support that adolescent brain in making really tough choices,” Leeson said.
“And we can support them by providing structure, which policy and procedure can do.”
School Board President Michael Faccinetto said he thinks older students potentially could handle using their devices during transitions and breaks.
“I think high school is a different animal,” Faccinetto said. “When you get to be 17- [and] 18-years-old, if you can’t walk down the hallway with a cell phone, God help us as a society.”
When it comes to the teens recording fights on their cell phones and posting them online, Faccinetto said he believes students will do that anyway, even if the devices were prohibited in the hallways.
Faccinetto said he would support letting high school students use phones outside of class if their principals supported the decision.
Though he would not be opposed to completely barring cell phone use at the high schools, either, he said.
School Director Emily Schenkel said she doesn’t think high school students should use cell phones in the hallways during transition times.
“I realize at the high school level, they should be able to self-regulate,” she said, “but the whole reason we’re in this boat is [because] cell phones cause such challenges with self-regulation.”
'No one's going to say that'
School Directors Kim Shively and Karen Beck Pooley both said they support a complete prohibition of cell phone use during the school day — even in the hallways and cafeterias at the high schools.
“Otherwise, I absolutely think at the beginning of every class session, it’s going to be a battle all over again, and it doesn't have to be,” Beck Pooley said.
Beck Pooley also said it would benefit teens to socialize with their friends during lunch rather than scroll on their phones.
A Lehigh University professor, Beck Pooley said she sees college students struggle to socialize, and she doesn’t want Bethlehem Area students to have that same issue.
“It’s a real problem for some of our 20-year-olds who have trouble finding connections to other students because they’re not used to those kinds of public spaces and social environments,” she said.
School directors made clear that students wouldn’t be banned from having a cell phone on school property, they just wouldn’t be allowed to use it during the school day.
“Keeping them in the book bag is fine,” school Director Michael Recchiuti said. “I know a lot of parents like to know when their kid is on the bus, they track them using GPS and everything.”
Board President Faccinetto said, “If you can’t have a phone in school, that’s ridiculous in 2025. No one’s going to say that.”
Procedures to support teachers
Faccinetto and other school directors asked the district administration to update the language of the policy draft to be more specific about the board’s goal of restricting cell phone use in classrooms and common spaces during the school day.
They also asked to see what procedures would be in place at each grade level to handle discipline for students who choose to have their phones out against district policy.
Board Vice President Shannon Patrick said it’s essential that building administrators follow through on the policy’s procedures to support teachers.
“A lot of feedback I get is that teachers are trying to do their job and they’re trying to follow procedures and a lot of times they feel it’s falling on deaf ears,” Patrick said.
“And then that's very disheartening. It’s very discouraging.”
School Director Alozie also said procedures should “make sure that we have protections in place” for the teachers who are being asked to implement the policy.
“I don’t want us not supporting teachers after we said this is what we want teachers to do,” he said.
Alozie said teachers should be trained how to handle students who ignore the policy, so that they’re “not prying things from students hands.”
Additional drafts of the proposed policy will be brought before the school board for discussion at meetings this month.
