In one of Dr. Jonathan Ponds’ recent messages to Montclair Public School families, the district’s successes were highlighted. Ponds also shared some new initiatives that are in the works. One of those initiatives was partnering with Yondr on a pilot program to combat student cell phone use. The program was set to launch this fall.
“Yondr has developed a product that allows students to be cell phone-free during class, and we will be testing it at Buzz, Glenfield, Renaissance and MHS. Our board committee will also be evaluating our cell phone policies district-wide (K-12),” Ponds wrote in his June 20 email to parents.
On Monday, interim Superintendent Damen Cooper said the Yondr program rollout will not occur in September. Cooper made the announcement as part of his superintendent’s report during a Montclair Board of Education meeting.
“We need to have more conversations and make sure all schools have an implementation plan to make it successful,” Cooper said of his decision to postpone.
Cooper said an effective rollout would require a lot of input from stakeholders, and he gave a target date of after the Christmas break in January.
Cooper spoke of the need for a shift to successfully implement the program in Montclair’s middle schools. When a board member mentioned implementing the program in the high school as well, Cooper spoke of the need for student involvement.
Cooper mentioned “mature students” — 11th and 12th graders who plan to go to college. As an educator, he values student opinion, and without that opinion, the district cannot move forward, Cooper said.
Cooper added that students should have had a voice at the negotiating table, but that “did not happen.”
Over 375 parents support the Yondr pilot program
On August 9, more than 375 parents signed a letter to Cooper and board members expressing their strong support for the Yondr program. The letter states, in part:
As more than 375 parents of children from all schools in the Montclair Public School District, we are writing to urge you to continue the program and plans Dr. Ponds has put in place through the end of the 2023-2024 school year. We hope that the incoming school administration will continue with their plans to pilot the Yondr program in all three middle schools and our high school in the upcoming 2024-2025 school year. We support Dr. Ponds’ revision of the district-wide cell phone policy and hope that you will consider the following principles as you revise the current policy.
First, regarding the Yondr program, we strongly support this pilot project and hope that the program leads to a long-term commitment to phone-free classrooms and schools. The potential dangers of smartphones, including the dangers of social media, cyberbullying, and access to inappropriate content, are now well known. As you also know, there is a growing consensus that the presence of smartphones and other communication devices in the classroom is harmful to students, both because of their impact on students’ ability to pay attention and because of access to non-academic, inappropriate, and distracting content.
One of the parents who signed the letter, Jordan Goldberg, responded to Cooper’s announcement during a public hearing.
Goldberg said Dr. Ponds was committed to the pilot project and that “it was better to try something that worked well than to do nothing at all.”
She said the harm caused by cell phone use in schools includes distraction, bullying and lower grades, among other things. Goldberg spoke of the growing momentum for cell phone bans in schools across the country, including in Los Angeles and New York City.
Goldberg also mentioned that a group of Montclair parents appeared on an NBC New York series discussing their concerns about cell phone use and the “Wait Until Eighth” movement, a pledge by parents to work together to ensure that their children are not given a smartphone until after eighth grade.
She urged Cooper to move forward with Yondr and involve parents in changes to the district’s cell phone policy process.
In June, Yondr representatives told the Local that in addition to providing phone cases, Yondr also offers a training and support program to help teachers and school administrators seamlessly integrate the program into schools.
