KILGORE, Texas — With school just around the corner, districts in the area are updating their policies on cell phone usage in hopes to keep students focused on the classroom and not the device in their hands.
Cell phones in the classroom is an issue teachers and administrators encounter often throughout a school year. Kilgore High School Principal Marcus Camp said students are constantly being sent to his office for cell phone issues.
"Last year, I would say several times a week if not daily," Camp said.
Schools all over East Texas are doing their best to keep students engaged in lessons by updating policies on cell phone usage in the classroom.
Some districts including Harmony and Kilgore ISDs have enforced cell phone bans during instruction hoping to help students get the most of their education.
"We want students paying attention to the instruction during class time," Camp said. "It's a big distraction to the students. Also, we have lots of discipline issues that revolve around phones and social media and a lot of that happens during classes."
At Kilgore ISD, students are allowed to have a cell phone in their backpacks, but it must be put away, on silent and they are not allowed in the hallways.
Camp has worked in education for years and says schools he’s worked at have only seen positive results from an out-right phone ban.
"Students would say, I can pay better attention in class. Because I know I can't get to my phone. So I'm not worried about, you know, who's messaging me," Camp said. "They do pay better attention during that time."
This is a challenge that many educators are experiencing while trying to adapt to the ever-changing world of technology.
"How do you use modern technology as a way to increase engagement in the classroom?" education expert and author James Keyes said. "Not as a distraction. But how do you use those tools to be able to increase engagement, but it's something that we have a tendency to take the easy answer, let's just ban them."
In his book, "Education is Freedom," Keyes said a full ban on cell phones is extreme and that schools should try to use technology as a way to enhance education rather than halt it.
"Rather than fear technology and push aside technology, embrace technology and then redirect the use of it toward things that are more effective," Camp said.