BRISTOL — Gavin Royea and Zach North, two juniors at Newfound Regional High School who participated in an extended learning opportunity at Acadia National Park over the summer, agreed that getting out in nature provided an “awesome” experience, part of which involved putting away their smartphones.
Gavin, whose trip project concerned how mental health is affected by the outdoors, told members of the Newfound Area School Board on September 8, “The important thing about this was the disconnection from everything, so being off all your electronics, talking to people instead.”
The discussion fit into another topic of the meeting, development of a policy to accommodate the state’s new “bell-to-bell” smartphone ban. Superintendent Paul Hoiriis mentioned Gavin’s presentation about mental health and the effect of being disconnected from electronic devices.
“I walked through every classroom today in the high school and, for the first time in over a decade, I didn’t see a single cell phone,” Hoiriis said, “and kids were very chatty and engaging, and I asked, ‘What do you do at lunch?’ And they said, ‘I played cards with my friend,’ and the teachers and some of the students commented, ‘The cafeteria is so loud now because everyone talks.’”
Hoiriis has been looking into how the district can conform to the new law while accommodating students who need to communicate with the outside world for college applications, jobs, and other responsibilities.
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