By Linda Conner Lambeck

“Yondr” pouches are used by a growing number of school districts to lock away students’ cellphones during classroom hours.

WESTPORT — Members of the Staples PTA executive board oppose a bell-to-bell cellphone ban at Staples High School, according to a letter sent to the Board of Education on Thursday.

PTA Co-presidents Jodi Harris and Stefanie Shackelford said they intended to read the letter to the board during the last night’s scheduled board meeting before it was cancelled earlier in the day.

The three-page letter, signed by 15 members of the executive board, outlines why they are unanimously opposed to both a school-wide ban and the purchase of Yondr bags to hold personal electronic devices at school.

“We maintain – based on hundreds of conversations with parents, students and even teachers — that there is not a cellphone problem inside of Staples High School,” according to the letter.

It goes on to express concern about the unintended consequences of a cellphone ban such as hindering instruction that relies on the use of personal technology and kids turning to computers during class time “to do personal business” thus creating a bigger problem for teachers.

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice, who supports a blanket ban on cellphones has been researching the issue for nearly a year. He led a fact-finding mission to neighboring Wilton in February where a full cellphone ban is in effect.

Last week, he announced plans to survey parents, students and faculty and hold a moderated community conversation leading to a final recommendation to the board in May or June.

Smartphones are already banned from elementary schools and restricted to lockers during the school day at middle schools, according to school board policy. At the high school, the use of cell phones is restricted in classrooms but allowed in hallways, the cafeteria and other spots in the school.

Members of the Staples PTA executive board say they collectively are the mothers of 25 current Staples students, 10 graduates and 11 future Staples students.  The parents said there is a policy governing cellphone use, but that it is rarely enforced.

“Many among our Staples staff count on — and expect — phones to be used by students as cameras, video recorders, calculators, scanners and more,” the letter states. “No workaround has been presented for these uses.”

Before an outright ban, the letter suggests the school board should consider tighter cellphone regulations. They don’t support a ban during lunch or free periods.

When he visited Wilton High School, Scarice said he noted observing students in the cafeteria talking to one another.

“If you were to visit the Staples cafeteria, you’d see that’s exactly what they do: they talk. Even with their phones on their person,” according to the letter.

Cellphones, they added, are how students in the crowded cafeteria find one another. As for access to social media, the PTA executive board said they are surprised the district doesn’t block these sites from the district networks.

The cost of Yondr pouches, used to lock up cellphones, is also concerning to the parents, they said. Wilton public schools, with 1,200 students, spent $80,000 on Yondr pouches. Staples, for comparison, has 1,700 students.

Wilton is said to have one school entrance where the phones are stored. Staples uses 5 separate student entrances.

“That doesn’t even take into account the manpower needed to lock and unlock the Yondr ‘stations’ multiple times during each school day, and the staff needed to maintain the bags themselves,” according to the parents.

As an overall question, the parents wonder what a cell phone ban will accomplish. They called a cellphone ban a movement, and largely “symbolic.”

“We also maintain that our Staples students are bright, motivated, eager to learn, gracious with their time and community support, and overall good citizens,” the letter states. “The Staples PTA is profoundly confident that if given structured rules around cell phone usage inside the classroom, our students will rise to occasion, without requiring a punitive, prison-like environment.”

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.