EXPENSE?

Myth #4: "Solutions like Yondr pouches or phone lockers are expensive & cumbersome. We just need stronger consequences & stricter teachers.”

Clayton should have no problem purchasing the most effective policies & procedures immediately...
“Our district is in sound financial health.” 
–John Brazeal, School District of Clayton Chief Financial Officer, May 8, 2024

Think about how much money Clayton would save if we could…

• decrease spending on counseling/mental health services & resources?
• do what we can to avoid legal fees for lawsuits related to phone use in schools?
• retain Clayton families instead of losing us to other schools taking braver, swifter action on a problem so widely recognized and important to so many parents​

"The research on this issue speaks to life & death matters for our children. Effective policy & procedure changes that protect & enhance our children's lives are worth much, much more than the $50k it would take for one of the most affluent districts in the nation to buy pouches. Yondr has actually made it a very easy, affordable solution. Can we please make this happen before the school year begins?!" 
​-Clayton parent + Clayton High School teacher

Can't teachers get some "teeth" & just take phones away if students are using them?

#1- This strategy does not work.

77% of public schools in the United States say they ban phone-use during class time. But 72% of high school teachers say that cell phones are a "major problem" in classrooms (Pew Research, 2024)

"Unless students have a place to lock their phones away, policing becomes a full-time job for teachers. When a teacher is charged with the task of enforcing a phone-free classroom on their own, they spend valuable class time policing, correcting, and managing phones. Valuable instruction time is also lost when students do not comply or beg for an exception." -Jonathan Haidt, 2024

#2- It's too much to put on teachers. Teachers should be focused on educating, not policing.

Quotes from Clayton High School teachers:

“I'm not ok with being responsible for 20+ $1,000 phones hanging on a wall nor the possibility of students grabbing one or another's phone."

"We work SO hard to build relationships with your kids. Taking away their phone is a very big deal. If the expectations aren't the same across the entire school, then I become the bad guy for taking the phone away. They don't understand why I'm taking it away, but their teacher down the hall lets them have it out the whole class. It all really undermines the work I've done to build trust with the student." 

“Teachers might tell administrators that it’s not a problem in their class because that’s like saying to your boss, ‘I don’t have control. I’m not doing my job.’ But the truth is that it’s a big problem."

“It is really hard to be a teacher who is restrictive when they have just come from a class that is not restrictive. It's like the kids are alcoholics and were drinking in their first class and now they are pissed that they are in your class and you took their bottle away.”