Challenges emerge with enforcing new Ontario school cellphone ban policy

When most kids in Ontario head back to class next week, there will be a big adjustment they have to get used to: no phones.

However, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) says members are still waiting to hear more about how the policy will be enforced.

“So the ministry sets the rules. They are really quite broad, and I just don’t know how that’s going to happen on the Tuesday after Labour Day,” said Karen Littlewood, OSSTF president.

In April, the province announced that students up to Grade 6 must put their cellphones away for the entire school day while kids from grades 7-12 would only be able to use their phone in between classes or during lunch. It won’t be allowed to use during class time.

“Unless there’s some change in direction from the school boards, I feel like it’s going to be a lot of the same,” said Littlewood.

Local school boards will be the ones that have to implement and enforce the rules.

CityNews reached out to both Toronto boards, public and Catholic. The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) sent their new device policy. Some of the directive, which is in line with the province’s rules, includes:

• If an educator observes a student’s non-authorized device during the school day/instructional time, the educator will instruct the student to put the device out of sight. If the student fails to comply with the direction, the student will be sent to the principal’s office.
• When dealing with a student who fails to comply with an educator’s direction to place a device out of sight, the principal will exercise their discretion and consider a range of responses to address the student’s behaviour. The response must be in line with provincial guidelines on progressive discipline.

The Toronto District School Board tells CityNews they are finalizing their policy for staff, and that will be shared with principals on Tuesday. They add that they will be implementing the Ministry’s direction.

Experts CityNews spoke with say the rollout at the start may be a bit tricky.

The infrastructure to support that, so, like pouches or, lockers or a place for the phones to be stored, haven’t been rolled out consistently across the school board. And so I do think there will probably be a bit of a bit of friction at the beginning of the school year,” said Sam Andrey, Managing Director of the Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).

There is also concern about kids finding ways around the ban, including accessing social media via laptops that are becoming more common in classrooms.

“If they are using laptops or other devices that are connected to the internet. It has to be connected, not to their data plan, but to the board’s Wi-Fi network, and therefore it’s filtering out things like, social media,” said Andrey.

Some teachers are saying there’s still grey areas to navigate, meaning when that first school bell of the year rings, it may take a few weeks to see how students adjust to powering off when class is in session.

“It will be interesting to see what happens across the board with those board policies and if somebody in the ministry is going to be looking them over to make sure that they are compliant with the policy memorandum,” said Littlewood.

CityNews reached out to Education Minister Jill Dunlop for comment. Her spokesperson, Edyta McKay, provided the following statement:

“Our government is removing distractions in Ontario schools with a clear province-wide ban on cellphones in classrooms. Supported by $17 million in wrap-around mental health and addiction supports, our ministry released directions to school boards ahead of the summer break, to ensure students, parents and educators were well prepared for the strengthened Provincial Code of Conduct standards coming this September.”

Just today, we launched a new educational campaign to support addiction prevention and raise awareness of the rules around vaping and cell phones in all schools. The ministry also created a task force comprised of education partners, parents, students and health experts to support implementation of the new standards and will continue to meet throughout the school year.”