The principal for 11th- and-12th graders wants to beef up a ban on the devices in the district’s classrooms for the 2024-25 school year. At both of the Dunkirk Board of Education’s June meetings, he advocated making students use magnetic lock pouches for their phones.

“It’s not a change of policy, just, I think, a better way of enforcing it,” Tedone said. He said cell phone use is his No. 1 concern as an educator, due to the loss of learning it leads to.

Tedone talked up a device called Yondr. Upon arriving at school, students put phones in individual Yondr pouches that are locked magnetically. They can carry the pouches throughout the school day. Tedone shared a short video demonstrating how someone can unlock a pouch at the end of a school day by using a magnetic unlocking device.

“You’re going to put students in the position where they’re going to have to look each other in the eye and speak to each other again,” he said. “I believe that students are often, even if they’re not on the phone, so pulled in by the idea that they’re missing something in the phone, that it’s hindering them academically.”

AP photo Dunkirk High School reported 940 cell phone violations during the last school year.

The school district does have a cell phone ban — but it wasn’t easily enforced in 2023-24. Tedone said the 940 writeups at the high school for cell phone use usually just resulted in a call home or a conference with staff, and no further discipline.

Nevertheless, 940 is an eye-popping number for a school district the size of Dunkirk — it works out to about seven writeups per high schooler. Of course, it’s likely some students had many more than seven violations, while others had few or none.

Tedone added that virtually every physical altercation in his school this last year stemmed from social media comments.

Installing the Yondr system would cost $37,000 up front, he continued. It would pay for 1,000 Yondr pouches at Dunkirk High, along with staff training and support. An unlocking device in every classroom could also be possible, he said.

Tedone emphasized that the pouches are not meant to go home. Rather, students are supposed to get them in homeroom, and return them at the end of the school day after unlocking their phones.

He thinks a grant the district has landed could pay for all or most of the Yondr system.

“Respectfully, we’d be foolish not to pursue this,” he asserted.

The Board of Education took no formal action on the proposal at its June meetings. Tedone acknowledged the district needs to fine tune the steps it would take if students offer pushback on the Yondrs.

He wants to do a couple of community forums this summer about the issue. While saying community support is important, Tedone also said that some will attack the initiative and it’s the Board of Education’s final decision on whether to back it.

“It might be a tough start to the school year if we do this, but it’s really, really worth it,” he concluded. “I think our Regents scores will change, I think our discipline will go down and I think our students will be more focused and more social.”