CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The Clarksville-Montgomery County School System recently presented data and survey results from the first year of the new phone and expanded electronic devices policy, which bans using cell phones during the school day and requires that phones remain off or silenced and kept out of sight in classrooms and hallways.

Since implementing this policy, there has been a 29.2% increase in cell phone and personal electronics violations from 2024-25 to 2025-26, up from 1,385 to 1,789. However, the number of repeated Category 2 offenses has dropped from 78 to 45 – suggesting that students are getting the message.

“Recent studies have shown that when cell phones are banned from schools, learning improves, distractions decrease, and students are more likely to engage in conversation with one another,” stated the presentation by CMCSS spokesman Anthony Johnson at the Feb. 24 School Board meeting.

Most parents, employees like cell phone ban

The presentation included comments from staff and parents on the changes.

“I believe the new cell phone policy has been beneficial to the school environment,” said an adult stakeholder. This was reinforced with 69% of all parents/guardians stating that they agree with and stand behind the CMCSS phone policy decision. This was also backed by the 70% of school employees who agreed with the decision.

Although parents and staff have found this change beneficial, students haven’t been as supportive. “The main consensus is that students don’t like the new policy, even if it benefits them,” said a stakeholder from the presentation. “Many students have trouble communicating with others, likely due to isolation resulting from our formative years being during the COVID pandemic.”

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Some parents and guardians have objected to the policy change. Johnson said those parents have been saying, “‘If there’s an emergency, I want to be able to contact my child.’ That’s what I have seen most of the time when there’s been a concern, and I just remind them that the phone is still there, and if there’s an emergency, your child would have access to that.”

Communicating during school hours

Elijah Fuller, CMCSS School Board student member, said there have been issues surrounding coaches needing to reach out to their athletes during school hours, trying to use text or message platforms.

“Some coaches are just set in their ways, and I know a lot of coaches will use Remind or GroupMe,” Fuller said. “Students aren’t taking the initiative to download the StudentSquare.” This is the CMCSS-approved communication tool, which is available on student laptops used during the school day. “I wish that I had seen more students who had taken the initiative to get their information from their coaches, also some coaches that don’t realize they can send an announcement at the end of the day.”

Johnson told the board the administration is working toward getting all coaches to use CMCSS tools to communicate with students, particularly StudentSquare.

“One thing that we are going to spending a lot of time this summer on is training our high school principals because high school students have access to StudentSquare. It’s an underutilized feature that we want to see utilized 100%. So StudentSquare will be the solution to this problem,” Johnson said.

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Board member Jimmie Garland stated near the end of the board meeting, “It’s good to know that we have systems in place to try to help make sure that our children are successful, and I thank the board for coming up with this policy.”

What’s next: ‘Wearable’ technology

Johnson mentioned that CMCSS is continuing to emphasize that the policy applies not just to phones, but to all personal electronic devices, and that includes emerging technologies.

“If someone 20 years ago would have told me I would have a watch that would do more than just tell me the time, I would have thought it was sci-fi,” he said.

He brought up smart glasses, which are wearable AI-powered computers that today can appear indistinguishable from regular glasses.

“Some companies, like ACT, are specifically banning and saying you can’t have them in the room; you’re seeing some universities and school systems coming out and banning them. We want to make sure that we are thinking about this holistically, knowing that sometimes those are used as prescription lenses, but also making sure that we understand the power of what these glasses can do is quite amazing,” Johnson said.

The presentation concluded with the CMCSS next steps and goals heading into 2026-27. These included:

  • Staying current on any new legislative changes regarding students’ usage of cell phones
  • Clarifying policy for new technology, such as smart glasses in 2026-2027 SCoC.
  • Continue to reinforce expectations with students, their families and employees
  • Continue to train administrators on the SCoC and trends with cell phones and electronic devices.

Chris Smith contributed to this report.

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