JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1510 West
With Quebec’s beefed up ban on cell phones in classrooms across the province is implemented as a new school year begins this week, the new measures will not change much at St. Thomas High School in Pointe Claire.
For six years, mobile phones have been prohibited during school hours at the school, and it has had a positive impact on both student interactions and grades.
“Effects on learning have been fantastic simply because the distraction is no longer there,” principal Dean Graddon said in an interview last week. “We’re definitely seeing very, very positive effects on the social-emotional level, as well as the academic level.”
The school had implemented a “bell-to-bell ban” on all cell phone use in 2019. The practice is in line with the new province-imposed measures, which prohibits students from using their phones during class, as well as during lunchtime or on breaks.
In January 2024, the province banned cellphones from classrooms, but now, the new measures extends the prohibition of their use on school grounds throughout the entire day.
The ban applies to both public and private schools at both the elementary and high school levels.
The ban has provided a setting that allows students to socialize face-to-face more than had been the case at previous schools without such a ban, said Graddon, who is entering his second year as principal at St. Thomas and his 28th year with the Lester B. Pearson School Board.
“You would literally see kids sitting along the floor or on furniture during free time, not interacting with one another; they’re on their phones sitting next to one another,” he explained. “We used to joke, ‘Are you texting each other?’”
“Now you’ve got kids who are doing kid things. They’re interacting. They’re talking. They’re having some fun.”
Parents are changing their attitudes about phone bans, too.
“I think there’s been a shift in people’s attitudes,” said Darren Becker, communications director with the Pearson board. “I think there’s more of an acceptance for these kinds of (measures).”
Recent polling backs up this claim. A poll by the Toronto Metropolitan University pollster “The Dais” in May showed that 81 per cent of respondents across Canada said they “strongly” or “somewhat” support banning the use of cell phones by students at school.
In Quebec, this number support for a ban was higher, at 84 per cent.
Some parents had publicly voiced concerns about these bans, including about how their children wouldn’t be able to reach them as quickly, should they need to.
Becker said that while these concerns are legitimate, it is important to note that cell phones have not always existed in school settings.
“I’m showing my age, but I was in elementary school in the ’70s, and we didn’t have cell phones, but there were always ways to reach someone in an emergency situation.”
Graddon echoed this response.
“Every single school has landline phones that are available for student use,” he said.
If students need to reach their parents, “the kids know (to) report to the office.
“‘Mom, I forgot my homework. Dad, I forgot my lunch.’ Whatever that message is, landline phones work just as well as cell phones.”
The new province-wide ban is an expansion of the original ban, which prohibited students from using cell phones during class time. That measure went into effect in January 2024.
The updated measure applies to all elementary and high schools in the province, including public and private schools. Strategies on how to enforce this ban are up to each individual school.
St. Thomas students who bring their cell phones to school are required to keep them in their lockers until the end of the school day.
The first day of classes for schools in the Pearson board is Friday, Aug. 29.