LETTER: The Clark County School District and cellphones

The U.S. surgeon general named social media as one of the greatest contributors to the youth mental health crisis. Cellphones are one of the most prevalent ways for teenagers to get their fix. More must be done to ensure that children and students are limiting their screen time. However, while the Clark County School District’s plan to limit students’ time with phones is admirable, it is the wrong way to solve the issue.

As KTNV-Channel 13 recently reported, district officials are spending nearly $2.6 million on these Velcro, cellular signal-blocking phone pouches for more than 280,000 children. With that kind of money, you’d think they were buying something revolutionary, but the reality is that the pouches are detrimental to student’s physical safety.

At the end of the 2023-24 school year, I was in one class that pilot-tested the pouches, and the loud Velcro contraptions are nothing short of dangerous in the event of a hard lockdown or shelter in place, where silence is crucial. This might be the perfect solution in a perfect world, but we don’t live in a perfect world. As such, the district should stick with hanging pockets in each classroom, which ensures each student puts his or her phone away and doesn’t scramble any signal, thereby keeping students mentally and physically safe.