Before Hinckley-Big Rock banned cellphones, things looked a lot different at the district’s three schools. Students were using their phones throughout the school day, and there was more technology-based discipline and concern about kids recording each other without permission, school leadership says.
Even during lunch, students would often be on their cellphones.
“They would sit next to each other, but they wouldn’t be interacting with each other,” Becky Lauer, Hinckley-Big Rock High School’s principal, recalled.
In the fall of 2024, when the district implemented a strict no-cellphone policy, that all changed.
It was an adjustment — and an awkward one, at that, according to Lauer. But, in time, the high-schoolers got used to it.
Nowadays, the high school cafeteria’s a lot louder. But it’s a good kind of noise, she says.
Hinckley-Big-Rock was among the Illinois school districts that banned or restricted cellphone use well before the passage of state legislation that will prohibit students in Illinois public schools from using cellphones throughout the day starting next school year.
But Hinckley-Big Rock decided to take it a step further this year, shifting away from all students having their own personal computers and instead housing district computers at school for them to be shared. In tandem with that change, administrators and teachers describe a general reduction in computer use in the classroom district-wide.
Generally speaking, students are now doing lots of reading and assignments on paper. Rough drafts of essays are being handwritten, with only the final copy typed up. The school is even looking to switch back to paper standardized tests, staff say.
Handwriting’s back, too, with more focused instruction than had been offered in recent years.
Hinckley-Big Rock School District 429 serves the Hinckley and Big Rock communities, which are located a little less than 60 miles west of Chicago. The whole district serves a little over 700 students across its three schools — one elementary, one middle and a high school.
The district’s students only began having their own personal Chromebooks during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Jessica Sonntag, Hinckley Big-Rock’s superintendent. She said the district was initially resistant to switching to one-to-one Chromebook access, but remote learning meant they had to.
After returning to-in person classes, however, the one-to-one Chromebook policy continued.
Then, last spring, the idea of switching back away from all students having their own computers started being discussed, according to Sonntag.
Behind some of the district’s move toward the change was a book — “The Digital Delusion” by Jared Cooney Horvath. Administrators at the district read it, and Sonntag said its contents “validated” a lot of the problems they were seeing in students: issues with focus and memory, and with critical thinking.
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Sonntag believes that prolonged use of screens and the “gamification of education” are affecting students’ ability to learn.
“These children have grown up utilizing computers as video games, as access and tools to communicate with the world,” Sonntag said. “Not as a learning tool. And so we’re giving them this tool that they don’t have primary knowledge (of) to be helping them learn … and we’re expecting them to just adapt and utilize it to learn.”
Following conversations and preparation, a message to families over the summer rolled out the new plan, under which the district would move away from a one-to-one model to a “more intentional shared-device approach.” As of the start of the year, the policy was in full force.
Recently, cellphones in schools and school-issued devices have come under fire across the country, with bans on the former starting to become the norm. At least 14 states have proposed laws to limit screen time in schools, in addition to districts themselves imposing limits on computer access and usage.
This backlash against screens is coming on the tail of “overuse (of technology) during COVID,” along with concern surrounding students’ use of AI, according to Liz Kolb, a clinical professor of educational technologies and teacher education at the University of Michigan.
Kolb told The Beacon-News that, in some instances, teachers may be instructed to make use of certain technology, without the authority to use it the way they see fit. Meanwhile, not all school districts have the funds or resources for the teacher training needed for technology to be used well in the classroom, she said.
The new policy at Hinckley-Big Rock doesn’t mean students aren’t using computers at all, and there is some differentiation among grade levels in what the new policy entails.
For example, while it’s expected that kindergarteners through eighth-graders don’t need devices at home for their schoolwork, per the district’s message to families over the summer, there may be some expectations for computer use for high-schoolers.
The district is still using computers in class as needed for things like research, and is teaching keyboarding to students, staff say.
Fifth-graders take a required course that teaches basic computer skills and things like Google applications, said Kim Torman, the district’s middle school principal.
And the high school has offerings like computer programming for interested students, according to Lauer, the school’s principal.
According to Kolb, it’s how technology is being used in the classroom that makes the difference in terms of learning, not necessarily the amount of time a student does (or does not) spend on a screen.
Likewise, while the debate over tech in the classroom has only increased recently, Kolb says the research “does not point to all or none” when it comes to how much it should be used.
“A balanced approach is best,” Kolb said. “Using some, a moderate amount, with good instructional design, can have moderate learning gains for students, more than just traditional paper-and-pencil or overuse of technology. So, it’s kind of like this Goldilocks approach.”
Educators at Hinckley-Big Rock say the new policy has thus far led to more intentional device use.
“It’s never, like, a time filler,” said Deborah Kabasenche, the district elementary school’s principal. That’s partially because teachers are now sharing devices, but also because the change has prompted district educators to think about whether they need technology for their lessons.
She estimates that, now, Chromebook use at her school is minimal, with older elementary students spending about 45 minutes to an hour per week on one.
“Does it require some extra thinking and planning?” she asked. “Yes, for sure. But the teachers are absolutely, 100% willing to do that.”
At the high school level, Lauer said she’s seeing a teacher sign up for a Chromebook about once or twice a day — before, she estimated computers were used more than half of the time.
Less computer usage has led to more students raising their hands to participate in class, according to Beckett Neibert, 15, a sophomore at Hinckley-Big Rock High School and one of the district’s student board representatives.
It’s also had an effect on group projects, said Meegan Kubinski, 16, who’s a junior and also serves as a student board representative.
Before, when students did group work, Kubinski said students would just share a document online and start working. Now, they have to talk about the assignment together first, before they can get a Chromebook to work on it.
The change is also prompting students to befriend their classmates more, she said, since they don’t have as much opportunity to reach their peers via computer.
According to high school special education teacher Denise Zartmann, students aren’t rushing through assignments as much, they’re using longer and more varied sentences when writing by hand, and they are asking her for more feedback.
Before, hitting “submit” was often the end of the assignment, Zartmann explained. But now, she thinks, students are seeking positive responses face-to-face from their teacher for the work they’ve done.
“I think they’re just getting more positive reinforcement from their peers and from their teachers,” Zartmann said. “Like, it’s more meaningful.”
The district’s restrictions on technology have also been beneficial when it comes to discipline and student engagement, according to school leaders.
Torman, the middle school principal, said discipline related to cellphone use before the district’s ban was “all day, every day,” describing issues like students being recorded without their knowledge and thereby feeling less safe at school.
Following the district’s cellphone ban, however, Chromebooks started to be used for some of the same purposes phones had been, she said. Students would walk through the hallways with their laptops open to game, or “text” with their friends on Google Docs. And class felt like “a rush to get work done so they could have free time on their Chromebook,” she said.
Now, Sonntag pointed out that teachers no longer have to monitor students’ computer use as much, since the devices are being used much less.
Another area that’s seen some change is handwriting instruction.
Kabasenche said formal handwriting instruction hadn’t been taught “consistently” or prioritized in recent years. But now, they’ve gone back to teaching it at the elementary level.
In putting a policy like this into practice, one thing the district had to think about was access. One thing they did to prepare was sell off a number of the district’s Chromebooks to the community so students could have them at home if needed, Sonntag said. High-schoolers can also check out a Chromebook to bring home if they need to.
That access question is one potential area of concern Kolb pointed to in schools where students don’t have a personal computer or device. Even beyond schoolwork itself, she pointed out that, for example, there are online tutors and support available that students without a computer at home would then not have access to.
As for access during the school day for students who need it, Zartmann, the special education teacher, said the policy hasn’t been an issue thus far when students’ accommodations require technology use. Calling her students “good self-advocates,” she said she feels her students have struck a good balance, using it as a tool but not necessarily deferring to using a computer all day.
There may still be some areas for improvement to the new policy, staff and students say.
Torman, for example, said the logistics of sharing Chromebooks among different classrooms has been a bit complicated. She said she’d like to, instead of sharing among teachers, just have a cart of Chromebooks in each classroom to simplify access.
Kubinski similarly suggested there could be a more organized system for students to have a dedicated Chromebook at the school that they use when needed, even if it’s shared with a few other students.
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In terms of students learning how to use technology in preparation for college and their future careers, district staff say they’re not opposed to technology, but just use devices more selectively now.
“This is going to follow our students into their tomorrow, whatever that is,” Lauer said. “And (we’re) making sure they understand how to use it in an appropriate way and use it truly to enhance something that they’re doing, rather than replace their thinking.”
AI, for example, could be useful to students as a searching tool, or if they need help understanding a concept, Lauer said, but it shouldn’t be used for writing an entire assignment.
And, some staff argued, the school district is, with this new policy, aiming to teach other skills — helping students hone their critical thinking, for example.
“Learning is supposed to be uncomfortable and hard,” Torman, the middle school principal, said. “I think if we go too much the other direction of relying on technology to do some of the thinking and the doing for us … that’s what’s scary to me, you know? So I think using the resources and technology intentionally to enhance their learning, I think is exactly what we should be doing to prepare them for the future.”
As the debate over how much technology is right in schools plays out across the country, several of the Hinckley-Big Rock educators spoke of education as a “pendulum,” with schools shifting their approaches over time based on what strategies work and which don’t.
“It was a no-brainer for us,” Kabasenche said. “We were easily able to jump on this swing without any arm-twisting.”
Kabasenche said she thinks education generally may be headed in the same direction Hinckley-Big Rock is — toward a “back-to-basics” approach. Lauer, the high school principal, echoed a similar sentiment.
And, while it’s probably too early to tell, Lauer said she thinks the new policy is going to lead to greater academic growth due to the higher engagement and greater collaboration the new policy is bringing.
The district currently has a roughly 87% graduation rate, according to the most recent available figures from the Illinois State Board of Education. That’s slightly lower than the state average.
The district’s most recent available ACT score averages in English, math and science are likewise slightly below state averages, per ISBE.
Screens may indeed be part of the issue with test scores and achievement in schools, according to Kolb, the University of Michigan professor, but she cautioned that there are a number of other issues that may get overlooked in favor of attributing declining achievement to computer use — for example, changes in the standards that schools have to teach, absenteeism and the country no longer having the surplus of teachers it used to have.
Similarly, restricting computer use may not be a silver bullet to reducing distractions, Kolb indicated.
“There’s been distractions in the classroom long before there was technology,” she said. “Just removing the technology is a bit of a Band-Aid. It will help for some students, but it won’t be a magical cure.”
But, while these long-term impacts remain to be seen, the policy is already changing much about how Hinckley-Big Rock students spend their days — and, at least according to the district’s teachers and administrators, the shift has been a positive one.
Lots of Zartmann’s students like doing puzzles now when they have downtime. She’ll also print out math games for students to do.
Some students are more inclined to help out their teachers when they have free time, and one of Zartmann’s students even goes to a different math classroom and helps tutor other students, she explained.
“I think it’s just wild that they choose to close the laptop without me saying anything,” Zartmann said. “I didn’t think that would happen.”
The Associated Press contributed.