It’s just one week into the 2024-25 school year, and depending upon whom you ask, the Kingston City School District’s (KCSD) cell phone-free secondary campus program is receiving mixed grades.
At a meeting of the Board of Education held on Wednesday, September 11, two parents and a student echoed the sentiment of many on a Facebook KCSD parents’ group: The district was in such a rush to enact the Yondr system, they ignored its impact on school safety.
The Yondr system sees students at Kingston High School and both J. Watson Bailey and M. Clifford Miller middle schools seal their cell phones in a lockable pouch as they enter school, and then unlock the pouch at the end of the school day. Centralized magnetic unlocking bases are located at school entrances. Each of the three schools using the Yondr system also have delineated spaces in administrative and nurses’ offices where they can unlock their phones if they need to contact parents or guardians. Students who use their phones for medical reasons will have different pouches allowing them access when needed.
Robin Tiano said many parents like her feel the Yondr pouches are a detriment to student safety in case of emergencies. She referenced an alleged security breach at Kingston High School on Thursday, September 5, in which “an individual pretending to be a student was able to gain access to the high school and engage in what, according to witnesses, was a physical altercation resulting in this discovery of a flare gun that was brought inside the school.”
“Many feel that the administration put the cart before the horse by purchasing and implementing the use of the pouches before utilizing funds to purchase metal detectors and or wands,” Tiano said. If students felt safe and if parents felt their children were safe because metal detectors or wands were being used, and if there were more full-time security staff in buildings, then maybe the cell phone policy would be less of an issue. Many people now feel, especially after the security breach last week, that cell phone use is being restricted so that incidents such as this one can be covered up.”
District officials could not be reached for comment on the alleged incident, and no reference to it was made during the school board meeting. As of press time no reference to a fight or security breach has been made on the district website. The City of Kingston Police Department’s blotters cite a fight occurring at Kingston High on September 5, but offer no further information. No arrests were made at Kingston High on that day, according to police.
Tiano said the alleged incident is an example of how the district is dropping the ball on school safety.
“I’ve spoken to many other parents as well as some staff who share the same concern and are upset with the lack of transparency from this administration,” Tiano said. “This could very easily have been a mass casualty event and we would have parents, if that had been a real gun, and we would have parents burying their children this week. I’m asking on behalf of parents and staff that this board reconsider the use of metal detectors or wands or both in our schools and that security officers be hired to full-time positions and that you take the safety of our children as seriously as we do.”
Brian Lundy, a parent of two KHS students, agreed that safety is an issue with the Yondr system, but as a parent who needs to be able to coordinate with his kids for school pickup, it’s also impractical.
“I need to get in contact with my children,” he said. “I can’t wait till after eighth or ninth period to be in contact with my children. It’s disheartening that the money that was spent on these devices prohibits me from speaking to my children.”
Lundy said his daughter, a member of the Junior National Honor Society, is in her first year and cannot reach out to him when she needs to because her cell phone is locked in a pouch.
“She’s nervous,” Lundy said. “The weeks leading up to school, she didn’t sleep very well. And then with these pouches, now she can’t get in contact with me when she’s feeling vulnerable or she’s nervous. Or she just needs to tell me, ‘Hey, I need to get picked up at X, Y, or Z time.’ The time when I get out of work and when she needs to get picked up is about seven minutes.”
Lundy’s son Matthew said students weren’t consulted on the Yondr program until after the school year was underway.
“So we couldn’t even get an opportunity to have public opinion until they were already implemented into the district,” Matthew said. “And to me, that’s just wrong.”
Matthew Lundy went on to say he understood the rationale for the Yondr pouches for people who might “have struggles learning without phones,” but not all students have those issues.
“There are people who are moderate with their phone use and can get highest honors,” said Matthew.
During the meeting, Superintendent Paul Padalino said the district is open to conversation about the Yondr program in an effort to make it work more smoothly. He added that students on both sides of the discussion were involved in the rollout.
“Continuous feedback is always good around the plan,” he said. “We did receive some feedback today. Overall, I think whether there were students who are for it or against it, students have been very collaborative with the efforts.”
Padalino said the district would consider the feedback from the school board meeting and elsewhere.
“We’re going to continue to monitor and engage the impact it has on our schools and look for different issues,” he said. “So some of the issues that maybe were brought up tonight are things, hey, well, how can we deal with that? Or how can we better deal with something else?”
the superintendent added that impact of the Yondr program has been positive from the point of view of educators in the district’s secondary schools.
“Many of our teachers have expressed great enthusiasm about having a cell phone-free environment in their classroom,” he said. “I very rarely receive emails from teachers, and I have received five or six in the last five days. The teachers are pleased.”
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