Students spend the majority of their time in clasrooms and school hallways while at their schools.
With the constant distraction of phones and social media, a phone-free school movement is becoming a focus in the Shawnee Mission School District.
Kim Whitman is the parent of two teenagers in the district. She co-founded a nationwide campaign to protect students from the negative impacts of technology on their development in and out of classrooms.
“I had a friend tell me she checked her son’s phone after school and he had five hours [screen time] at school. So how much learning is going on?” Whitman asked.
Other parents, including Grace Hobson, have joined in to take this initiative to the Shawnee Mission School Board.
“The phones need to be banned from the beginning of the day to the end of the day,” Hobson said. “The first bell of the day to the last bell of the day.”
The two mothers know this isn’t just a problem at schools.
Hobson and Whitman have established boundaries in their homes.