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By Nina Moini and Aleesa Kuznetsov, Minnesota Public Radio News

Many students across Minnesota will start the school year phone-free in the classroom. The state Legislature mandated school districts adopt a cell phone policy by March 2025, but most school districts spent the summer crafting policies to be in place from day one of the school year.

In July, the Minnesota Elementary School Principals’ Association and the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals put out “The Cellphone Toolkit” to help guide districts in navigating a tricky subject. It lays out two model policies, no cell phones allowed all day or cell phones allowed only during passing time and lunch.

The reality has become a patchwork of policies. For example, at Edina High School and Wayzata High School, their policies simply state that phones must be turned off and put away.

Independent School District 318 in Grand Rapids and Big Fork is taking it a step further, by having high school students put their phones in a designated location at the beginning of each class period.

And it’s even more restrictive at United South Central (USC) Schools in Wells where phones will be locked in a Yondr pouch from the moment the bell rings to start the school day.

Last week the USC school board approved a $15,000 purchase of Yondr pouches for their new school cell phone policy. The district aims by Oct. 1 to give each student a pouch for the entire school year. Once a phone is put in the pouch, they can only be unlocked with a special magnet that the school will have.

“We know that we can’t accomplish a cell phone-free environment just by words on a page,” USC Superintendent Taylor Topinka told Minnesota Now guest host Nina Moini. “We’re hoping that this tool really helps us be uniform in implementing this policy across the board.”

Superintendent Matt Grose of ISD 318 said he came to his policy with the help of teachers. It was the union the first brought the concern of phones in schools to him.

According to a survey conducted this year by Pew Research, more than 70 percent of high school teachers say student phone distraction is a “major problem.”

And the problem isn’t just about not learning, but also about mental health and social-emotional learning.

“If you talk to principals in schools and talk to them about how many of the issues and student behavior issues that they deal with that have some sort of technology component, it’s incredible,” said Grose.

Both Grose and Topinka said they’ve been bracing for pushback, but so far have heard positive feedback from parents.

“Their primary thing that they want to make sure is that they’re able to get a hold of their child in an emergency and we’ve worked through that before, and we’ll continue to do that,” said Grose.

When it comes to students, Grose said he knows there will be reluctance at first and that students will try and find ways to keep their phones on them. But he’s hopeful that students will eventually embrace the freedom that comes with being phone-free.

“I think seeing kids talking to each other, seeing kids interacting with each other and other positive adults in the building, is something we’re looking forward to,” said Grose.