Get local news delivered to your inbox!
St. Catherine's Assistant Principal Debbie Forrest, right, shows a student how to open a Yondr pouch Tuesday morning.
RACINE — “Put your phone away” is something teachers at St. Catherine’s High School don’t say anymore. The teenagers still have their cellphones throughout the day, but they’re inaccessible, required to be in magnet-sealed pouches that cannot be forcefully pried open by students itching to get back on Instagram or TikTok.
When students got to school, 1200 Park Ave., for the first day of the 2022-23 school year Tuesday morning, they showed the assistant principal their phone, put it in their personal gray fabric pouch, clicked the magnet closed and then walked to their first class of the day. After the final bell, students hold up their pouch to a gray “unlocking base” attached to the wall at the school’s exits, the magnet unlatches and the student can go home with cellphone in hand.
The high-strength magnets that hold each pouch closed are stronger than what could be undone by something in a science classroom or by brute force. They’re made from neodymium.
St. Catherine’s students are still plugged into the internet. They each have an iPad, used for virtually every class, but the iPad has “parental controls” that block the use of texting or social media.
If there’s an emergency during the day and parents ask how they can get in touch with their kids, Principal Mike Arendt said he tells the parents, “Well, what did your parents do when you when you were in school? (They) called the office.”
If there’s something less urgent, parents can also email their kids on their school email, accessible by iPad.
With cellphones out of students’ hands, Arendt said behavioral issues are down, classroom performance has improved and students appear more engaged with other people — rather than with their phones — than they did when phones were still accessible.
“We’ve seen a dramatic reduction in our online harassment (reports), our online bullying, online drama between students,” Arendt said. “We’ve had a dramatic increase in engagement. We’ve had a dramatic increase in our academic achievement since we implemented this just prior to the start of second semester last year (the 2021-22 school year). Our failure rates are down.”
The pouches are produced by a company called Yondr. San Francisco-based Yondr was founded in 2014 and has continuously made headlines since as it eventually invented its own industry; it still doesn’t really have any competitors.
One teacher, Frank Miles, has a daily tradition of standing at the third-floor landing of the west stairway and saying “Hello” to every student as they walk up the stairs each morning. “Prior to Yondr,” Arendt said, “maybe three or four students are going to say hi to him. Now … almost every single person is engaged and saying ‘Hi.’”
Besides St. Catherine’s, more than other 1,000 schools in the U.S., Canada and Europe partner with Yondr for the same purpose.
The cost to implement Yondr is approximately $15-30 per student, according to the company.
The powerful magnet, left, used to unlock the magnetically closed Yondr pouch and allow the cellphone inside to be released is shown here in this promotional image.
At St. Cat’s, all students are given a pouch. But, if they lose or break the pouch, it’s $20 for a replacement. When one student showed up late on the first day of the 2022-23 school year without her Yondr — she said she couldn’t find it after the summer — Arendt pulled a $20 bill out of his pocket to pay for it.
Taking cellphones from kids could also be a mental health boon.
A 2019 Pew Research Center study found that 95% of Americans ages 13-17 have access to a smartphone, with 45% saying they are “almost constantly” using the internet in some form or other.
Fifty-three percent of U.S. kids have a smartphone by the time they turn 11 years old, according to a 2019 Common Sense Media study. Those 11-year-olds, born in 2008, entered the world just one year after the iPhone was introduced by Apple, almost immediately transforming how Americans communicate with each other and connect with the internet.
This unprecedented connectivity is largely believed to be taking a toll on youth mental health.
“There’s so many studies that have come out in the last few years about the social anxiety, stress, low self-esteem, teen suicide is up. Studies are showing and proving how destructive these devices can be. Not only the device itself, but the social media aspect of it,” Allison Silvestri told CNBC in a feature about Yondr in schools in 2019; at the time of the interview, Silvestri had been principal of San Lorenzo High School in California, which uses Yondr.
St. Catherine's Assistant Principal Debbie Forrest, left, reminds a senior how to seal his cellphone in a Yondr pouch Tuesday morning.
Studies largely don’t blame smartphones and connectivity themselves for negative health effects, but rather overuse of the technology.
“The excessive use of the smartphone has been associated with impaired cognitive functions and mental health problems” in adolescents and young adults. “There are unique findings on the association between using smartphones, need of constant stimulation, deficits in everyday cognitive functioning and brain changes which should send alarm signals to clinicians and educators in the modern world,” concludes a 2021 Israeli study published in the medical journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Authorities have identified the man who was killed breaking into a North Side apartment early Friday morning.
A man, woman and girl were in the home at the time.
Barnes' increased use of security was an issue early in his term as lieutenant governor as well.
After having several jobs out of high school, Monique McKnight’s aunt mentioned working as a substitute educational assistant. Now, McKnight is one of Knapp Elementary's most recognizable educators.
What does Claude Lois do? The village declined to allow a reporter to shadow him for part of a day. After initially agreeing to an interview, the interview wasn't scheduled.
Harry Wait, who admitted requesting absentee ballots using the names of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason without permission, faces criminal charges, Wisconsin Department of Justice confirmed.
The building underwent a more than $2.4 million renovation in 2014 and 2015 to convert the former restaurant and night club into a concert venue but the owner died in 2021.
Investigators met with the Department of Corrections Internal Affairs and learned that the supervisor was also accused of providing the inmate with a seized cellphone.
Harry Wait, who admitted requesting absentee ballots using the names of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason without permission, faces criminal charges, Wisconsin Department of Justice confirmed.
Kwik Trip announced the opening of Kwik Trip Kids Learning Center, an on-site child care center at the company’s headquarters in La Crosse.
St. Catherine's Assistant Principal Debbie Forrest, right, shows a student how to open a Yondr pouch Tuesday morning.
St. Catherine's Assistant Principal Debbie Forrest, left, reminds a senior how to seal his cellphone in a Yondr pouch Tuesday morning.
The powerful magnet, left, used to unlock the magnetically closed Yondr pouch and allow the cellphone inside to be released is shown here in this promotional image.
Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.