As schools nationwide grapple with how to keep students off their cell phones, one Connecticut

school took a blunt approach. In Manchester, Illing Middle School banned all cell phone

use, requiring students to lock phones in a pouch until the end of the

school day.

The backlash from students and some parents was swift.

Ealing even offered to have administrators unlock a student's phone if needed.

But within weeks, school staff said that wasn't even necessary.

This comes as lawmakers in at least half a dozen states are pushing their schools

to curb cell phone use.

Ailing Middle School's assistant principal Raymond Dolphin joins me now.

Welcome and thanks for joining us.

So tell us a little bit about what the problem was that you were trying to fix in the first place. Why the band?

The number one problem was that the cell phones were interfering with the

learning of our students in classrooms.

As we administrators were visiting classrooms as well as listening to other teachers who would

regularly hear or witness ourselves when the teacher was providing instruction, students were being distracted on their cell

forms.

So you spearheaded this move, and we should note this wasn't about limiting use during the school

day or giving teachers the power to take phones away if they're a problem.

You basically said no phones all day. That's it. Lock it away. Why that approach?

We as an administrative team led by our principal, Miss Eilisa Torres, what we found is that for even adults, it's really difficult for them to manage their cell phone use and for students, it's even that much more challenging.

Just this is age appropriate for them to struggle even more so to just tell them it's

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