WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Town Creek Middle School and Cedar Grove Middle School will be using magnetic phone pouches for the 2024-2025 school year in an effort to keep students engaged in class.

The Brunswick County Board of Education will be piloting the YONDR pouch this year at the two middle schools. At the start of the school day, students will place their phones in a magnetic sealed pouch. The pouches will be opened when the school day ends.

Students will keep their phones on them during the day. If a student needs to open their pouch to access their phone there are various locations around the school with magnets that can open pouches. Chairman of the Board of Education Steven Barger says students will only have their pouches opened under certain circumstances.

He says parents who want to contact their children can reach out to the school’s front office. School officials say this is not an effort to stop communication between children and parents but to help students stay focused while at school.

“This is not an attempt to stop communication between students and their parents. We wholeheartedly believe in parents having access to their children during the day. And that can be done by calling the office or if a student needs to call their parent, they can go to the office and call their parent and all of our classrooms are equipped with phones as well,” said Barger.

Phones in schools are a nationwide issue. According to a survey done by YONDR, schools that used the pouch saw improved student engagement in the classroom, improved student behavior and academic performance.

Barger says he understands the concerns when it comes to the pilot program. During open house for Town Creek and Cedar Grove, parents and students tested out the YONDR pouches and took home an information sheet that answered various questions.

“With anything new, I think there is a certain amount of nervousness for everybody. We want the program to be successful but we also know we have to sit back and see how the data plays out,” Barger said.

Barger says with phones put away teachers can focus on teaching and less on taking disciplinary action against students for inappropriate phone use. Officials say they want to give students the opportunity to create meaningful face-to-face connections.

Students with medical conditions who need their phones for monitoring will use a non-locking Velcro pouch. Parents can also opt their children out of using the YONDR pouch. Children who do not use the YONDR pouch will have to leave devices at home.

Depending on how the data plays out, the YONDR pouch could spread to other schools in Brunswick County and across southeastern North Carolina.

“I have been in contact with other board members in other counties who are interested to see how we’ve worked through the process so far and what we’re planning to do and quite a few of them are interested to see how it works in Brunswick County,” Barger added.

‘If there’s an emergency, I’m nervous I can’t contact my child’

The big question WECT has heard from parents is what if there is an emergency and they want to contact their child.

Superintendent Dale Cole said the district already requires cell phones to be turned off and tucked away, but he acknowledges that the YONDR pouch goes a step further.

Cole said there are no safety procedures that rely on students’ access to cell phones.

When it comes to an emergency, like an active shooter situation, Cole argues it’s dangerous for kids to be on their phones when they should pay attention to their teacher.

“The procedures we have is that our students have to pay attention to the adults in our schools during that situation, and we use our own communication systems,” Cole explained. “We have a phone in every classroom. Every one of our teachers has a phone, and then we have an office phone. We have a mass contact system that we can use for all of our parents, and we would use our normal emergency safety procedures as well as communication procedures in any situation like that.”

Cole believes staff members and teachers have the training to keep kids safe, and with these new pouches, students have the tools needed to focus on the classroom and not their cell phones.

“No matter what happens, we feel like we’ve done the best that we can to prepare and that we’ve made the investments in time and money to have the tools we need to help our people do the best job possible, to keep our staff and our students safe,” he said.

Students will get their YONDR pouch on September 6.

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