Delaware

Delaware schools to pilot cell phone pouches with new state funding

Published

1 year ago

July 23, 2024

Delaware schools to pilot cell phone pouches with new state funding

Southern Delaware high schools craft their own phone policies

With schools vary in their cultures and teaching approaches, schools in southern Delaware have approached phone policies differently particularly at the high school level where students are more mature and responsible for their decisions.

Brandywine High School and the Smyrna School District are among the latest schools to implement cell phone policies for the upcoming school year separate from the legislative pilot project.

At Sussex Central High School, there is no school-wide policy on phones, but a few classrooms have implemented their own rules.

“The teachers at my school, we have the autonomy to create our own cell phone policies,” said Jeff Gartman, who teaches media and technology. “The administration gives us that freedom to make our own decisions and they trust us to do what’s best for our classroom.”

A number of teachers at Sussex Central use phones as a tool to foster discussions or facilitate research among students. Yet, after 20 years of teaching, Gartman recognized the devices can also pose a distraction that needs to be addressed in his classroom.

“It piles up to lost time, lost engagement and getting kids being less productive and the whole environment being less effective,” he said. “Personally, I have been struggling with this for years, trying different ways of managing it and I was just not successful with really fighting off the distraction that the phones are to students when they have them in their possession.”

What works for him and other teachers in his building is eliminating cell phone access, a policy he started last spring. This decision prompted him to purchase a hanging storage organizer with little pouches. Each pouch is assigned to a student with their name for every period throughout the day.

“Students come into my room and there’s a pouch hanging on the wall with a bunch of individual pouches. They’ve got their name on one of them. They come in, they put the phone in there,” he described. “I’ve even got it rigged up so they can charge their phone while they are in class, about two minutes before the bell rings at the end of class I allow them to come get it.”

After two months of implementing the policy, despite initial concerns, he now feels accomplished and pleased with the positive feedback from parents and students. He has noticed a noticeable improvement in his students and the overall classroom environment.

“For the most part taking the distraction away just added to the whole environment and kids were more productive, less distracted, and got more done,” said Gartman.

State Sen. Paradee says the phone pouches test pilot may not be ready in time for this school year since the state Department of Education is just drafting its regulation. He says the goal is to have the funds available for schools by the middle of the school year.

He encourages parents, guardians and caregivers to give the test pilot a chance. “My message to all the parents, grandparents, caregivers: hang in there, give it a shot and we’ll work through this.”

Source link

Related Topics:cellphones delaware schools Featured

Click to comment

Delaware

Serious crash closes I-95 northbound in Newark, Delaware

Published

15 hours ago

November 7, 2025

Press Room

Serious crash closes I-95 northbound in Newark, Delaware

Police have shut down Interstate 95 northbound in Newark, Delaware, after a serious crash on Friday.

SkyForce10 was over the scene on Friday, November 7, 2025, and several vehicles, including a tractor-trailer, could be seen involved in this incident.

Léelo en español aquí.

Delaware State Police are advising travelers in the area to seek alternative routes while they investigate.

⚠️Traffic Advisory – New Castle County⚠️
I-95 northbound near the Service Area is closed due to a crash. Please seek alternate routes of travel to avoid delays. pic.twitter.com/YIDAADUwuG
— Delaware State Police (@DEStatePolice) November 7, 2025

NBC10 is working to find out if anyone was injured in this crash.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

Source link

Delaware

Trump Judge Declines to Appoint His Pick as Delaware US Attorney

Published

1 day ago

November 6, 2025

Press Room

Trump Judge Declines to Appoint His Pick as Delaware US Attorney

A Trump-appointed judge in Delaware has declined to appoint the president’s interim US attorney to head the office in the state on an ongoing basis.

Chief Judge Colm Connolly posted a notice dated Thursday that the US District Court for the District of Delaware “declines to exercise its authority” to appoint a US attorney for the district. Connolly notes that the term of current interim US Attorney Julianne Murray expires Nov. 11, without referring to her by name.

Connolly had signaled he didn’t intend to defer to the administration’s choice of Murray, a former Delaware GOP party chair, by soliciting …

Source link

Delaware

Kensington outreach group travels to Wilmington, Del. to look for lost homeless they helped

Published

2 days ago

November 6, 2025

Press Room

Kensington outreach group travels to Wilmington, Del. to look for lost homeless they helped

The City of Philadelphia has been working to clean up Kensington for several years now, but in the process, people who once lived on the streets there are moving to other cities. And, outreach groups are losing track of the people they were working to take care of.

NBC10’s Johnny Archer went out with one group, Operation Save Our City, on Wednesday night as they tried to search for missing people in Wilmington, Delaware.

“I’m trying to figure how many of my folks from Kensington ended up here,” said Rosalind Pichardo.

The outreach group said they are concerned because some of the folks who have gone missing won’t get the resources they need.

The group went to a homeless encampment in the Christina Park neighborhood of Wilmington and handed out bananas and Narcan.

“This current drug supply is so dangerous,” Pichardo said. “Other cities might not know how to deal with detox and withdrawal from this current drug supply, and if we get folks back home to deal with their condition, they have a chance to survive.”

Since the City of Philadelphia started cleaning up Kensington under Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration, many unhoused people have left Philadelphia.

NBC10 investigators reported last month that the City of Philadelphia was buying one-way bus tickets to send unhoused people out of the city.

A program from the city that buys one-way bus tickets for Philadelphia’s unhoused population is using taxpayer money to fund it. NBC10 investigative reporter Claudia Vargas looks into the reasons why.

But neighboring communities are feeling the impact.

Wilmington Mayor John Carney said his city is one of them.

“It’s just not right for these other places to send their folks to Wilmington,” Carney said last week. “The constant influx from cities and towns makes it hard for us to care for the population here. And most importantly, it’s unfair for the city residents who live in these neighborhoods.”

Pichardo said the solution to cleaning up Kensington should not be sending people some place else.

“This certainly can’t be the solution to cleaning up Kensington,” she said. “Rerouting people to other cities to make it another city’s problem.”

NBC10 reached out to Mayor Parker’s office on this issue and has not yet heard back.

Operation Save Our City said they did not find any of the people they were looking for on Wednesday night, but they will be back on Thursday to continue their search.

Source link