Off the Screen: St. Mary's implements phone-free school day

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — Students at St. Mary's Catholic High School in Colorado Springs must keep their cell phones turned off and put away for the day. The school adopted the new policy at the start of the year.

"It's a welcome change, for sure," said social studies teacher Katie Ghent. She noticed the transformation in student behavior right away. "We're having longer attention spans, I can extend activities a little bit longer, and it's been really beneficial for them retaining information," Ghent said.

Principal Robyn Cross explained that the school used to ask students to put away phones in their backpacks without powering them down. "They weren't. It was really in their pocket," Cross said. "And so, it was pulled out at every moment."

Away for the day means from bell to bell. The entire school day, including lunch, must be phone-free.

"The conversations last year used to revolve around I'm looking at a video, I'm going to talk about that," Cross said. "Now they're actually talking to one another in the hall without that."

The policy change was motivated, in part, by research presented in the documentary Screenagers which tracked lower academic performance and higher suicide risk in students who engaged in heavy amounts of screen time.

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