The headline read: “Schools in Augusta, Readfield ratchet up restrictions on cellphones.” It should have been a no-brainer, not a surprise.

But I was surprised. Why on earth are students permitted to have cellphones in class? Yet, the article Sept. 21 in the Sun Journal said, only 76% of schools in the United States forbid students to take cellphones to class. It should be 100%, and it should have happened long ago.

I can’t find a comprehensive list of Maine schools that do or do not permit cellphones, but if the 76% figure were applied to Maine schools and students, about 137 schools (out of 569) would be allowing about 42,000 (out of 176,000) kids to use cellphones in schools.

Augusta (Cony Middle and High Schools) and Readfield (Maranacook) don’t allow cellphones from grade five through grade eight. They join Lewiston, which doesn’t allow cellphones from kindergarten through grade eight, but let’s high schoolers use their phones between classes.

A link seems plausible between distraction and cellphones. Kim Liscomb, principal at Cony, said it was becoming “increasingly difficult to keep students engaged” in the classroom and that students’ use of cellphones was “(getting) in the way of instruction.” Distractions abound.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 10% of kids aged 3 to 17 have ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder). The proportion rose with age, from about 2% among preschoolers to 13% among middle and high schoolers. And perhaps two-thirds of those children have other problems, such as misbehavior or anxiety.

Not to overwhelm you with statistics, but roughly half of the ADHD kids take legal medication to quell their hyperactivity. Distraction is the issue, and cellphones aggravate distraction.

Education Week wrote in 2019 that teachers worry that cellphones are “feeding an addiction and stunting students’ development of face-to-face communication skills.”

The Forest Hills schools in Michigan ban cellphones all day, even during lunch. Superintendent Dan Behm said, “We really wanted to provide a clean break for students and not have the frenetic energy that can happen if kids start texting each other or social-media posts start going.”

Behm added that students seem less anxious now.

Bret Stephens wasn’t talking about cellphones but about the importance of paying attention on Monday when he said in The New York Times, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

If your mind sees hundreds of images an hour, it’s going to forget nearly all of them. Most notably, the lessons of history because your mind focuses on what’s on the screen right now.

While this seems pretty clear-cut to me, not everyone agrees. (I tell people who say they like my columns that I hope they disagree with me, at least sometimes.)

Admittedly, some districts are going in the other direction. Education Week wrote: “Some experts say it’s better to keep cellphones in school and help train students how to use them responsibly, rather than just banning their use. Plenty of educators agree.”

Brian Toth, superintendent of Saint Mary’s Area schools in Pennsylvania, told EW cellphones are a teaching tool. Teachers there send kids on scavenger hunts using cellphones and check students’ work on apps such as Kahoot, a Norwegian platform with multiple-guess quizzes.

As kids, we went on scavenger hunts using a written list of items to find. I remember when teachers made up their own quizzes. I did it that way, too, at UMaine.

New York City dropped its cellphone ban in 2015 because it was used more stringently in low-income schools than in high. New York used a bazooka to swat a fly and aimed at the wrong fly.

The solution seems pretty simple, and I’ve heard of teachers using it in schools without a school-wide ban: Put your name on your phone, turn it off and put it in a basket on the teacher’s desk when you enter the classroom. And face a social and/or academic penalty if you cheat.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, how is it going in Augusta and Readfield?

Cony Principal Liscomb told the school board, “It has made an incredible difference, and the staff is incredibly happy. There is a significant increase in engagement of students in the class, raising their hands and fully engaged in the activities.”

At Maranacook, Principal Michele LaForge said the policy was meant to make hallways safer and to raise student engagement. She reported that more students, about 60%, are taking part in extracurricular activities, which could be an unexpected side effect of the ban.

I’ll take that over Kahoot and cellphone scavenger hunts any day.

When Bob Neal ran into another former School Administrative District (now Regional School Unit) 9 school director the other day, they shared their gratitude that they don’t have to deal with today’s school issues. Neal can be reached at [email protected].