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The Claiborne County Board of Education approved starting a pilot program that would ban cell phones at Soldier’s Memorial Middle School beginning in January during their November meeting.
SMMS Assistant Principal Lisa Ferguson said the current policy at the school is to take up cell phones in the first period and return them at the end of the day when the students turn in their Chromebooks. Eighth-graders had been permitted to leave their phones in their lockers during the day.

“They get a little bit creative in putting them in their pockets, hoodies, whatever,” she said. “Because they are a distraction, we have discussed banning cell phones to try and increase our scores.”

Board Member Shane Bunch said the district’s policy has been that students are not supposed to have their cell phones out during the day. They were only supposed to leave them in their backpack or pocket.

“From all of the studies I can find, places that have taken the cell phones away have seen their overall scores go up from 6.4% all the way to 15%,” he said. “Warren County Schools banned them as a district and they’ve seen all of their scores go up. They did get some kickback at the very beginning of it, but that settled down and the parents are on board with it today.”

He pointed out that SMMS had struggled with test scores and making the change to eliminate distractions could help.

“Nothing is going to be easy, but I’d like to try it for at least a couple of years to see where we’re at with our scores,” Bunch said. “If it helps our students do better in class then it could be something we look at doing district-wide.”

Board member Dan Pearman seconded the motion, which will go into effect January 1, and it was approved unanimously.

Director of Schools Meredith Arnold said cell phone usage was one of the topics discussed during the recent TSBA conference.

“Just to reiterate what Mr. Bunch had said, those schools and counties that had come forward and did this did show improved test scores and they did show behavioral issues to be lessened,” she said.