As the new school year starts next week, students at the Middletown City School District in Orange County, New York, cannot use their cellphones anytime during the school day.
The new policy applies to all district students, about 7,000 in total, ranging from kindergarteners to high schoolers.
Before the school day starts and after it ends, students can use cellphones. But during the school day, including lunchtime and passing periods, students must turn off and put away their cellphones, according to the policy.
“It is our belief that this is going to be a powerful shift inside the district. We want scholars to be engaged in learning and capitalizing on the resources that we have inside our schools. It makes it really hard to do so if they are consistently distracted by a cellphone,” Middletown City School District Superintendent Amy Creeden told The Epoch Times on Aug. 31….