SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Lu High Pod. Thanks for tuning in to the first episode of a brand new season, brand new school year. I'm excited for this episode because I think it's top of mind for a lot of not just our families, but a lot of our prospective families. I have with me our executive director, Dan Gurke, and he is here to talk about phone usage in schools. So how's it going, Dan?

SPEAKER_01 0:21

It's going well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah. All right. Are you excited for a new school year?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I am. I'm excited. Yeah, it's been it's been a good summer.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah. Yeah. Always. Do you want to give a quick field update? Good progress going on down there?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I do, but are we filming this?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah. Oh, yeah. This is our first ever filmed podcast. It might end up on YouTube to be determined.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I don't know how I feel about this. I've often been told I have a face for radio. Oh, yeah. Well, this is exciting. We're taking a step forward in the technology world. Yeah, I'll give you an update on GI3. Uh they're still set to have the majority of the project pretty much completed by the end of September, which hypothetically, if we can get a temporary occupancy permit, uh, we could practice. Our fall sports could maybe practice down there in October. I hate to say that because you never know what what delays will pop up. We did have a delay on the concessions building, which pushes the final project to completion probably early December. Um, but it's it's moving along. You drive by, you can see the the backstop poles are up and the fence poles are starting to go in. The the site's pretty much leveled, pretty much fine-graded to what it's gonna look like. So you start to see cement getting poured, turf will start to go in here pretty soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

So yeah, that bridge was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Bridge was crazy. Yes, I mean, like 60% of this project is under the ground, which is why it's uh expensive. But but uh yeah, it it we're moving along. It's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, awesome. Very exciting. Okay, so let's get to it. Uh it's no secret that phones in schools have become like a really hot button issue, not just at the school level, but I feel like at the um federal level, uh we have Congress people talking about it, we have districts making decisions, we have whole states making decisions on this. So um parents, I think, want to see a change. I think we all understand that like the trajectory we're headed is not is not great. Um we've kind of slow played it a little bit because we don't want to be overreactive um or too reactive. Um, but a lot of schools are going with blanket bans, which just means their kids are locking up their phones, no phones at all throughout the school day. Um so I guess to get started, why did we take our time on this and why don't we just go kind of what I'm calling the easy route of a blanket ban?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Sure. Yeah, I think that's the right way to frame it up. But I think that's uh that's a good first question on it. Probably the first probably goes to our philosophy a little bit as a school, just how we approach kind of bigger decisions from a 20,000-foot perspective. I don't think we're an institution that that jumps at things without an appropriate level of research. I mean, for people listening that maybe don't know me well or know the people on our admin team well, we we do value trying to become at some level experts uh in the business of secondary ed, in the business of motivating adolescents. And so our silence on it maybe has been frustrating. I get that. Uh at the same time, behind the scenes on that is a lot of reading, a lot of research, a lot of what are other places doing, because it is a complicated issue. And and every parent that I've talked to about it has acknowledged oh, yeah, there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to trying to figure out what to do with 1,100 kids and largely their cell phones during the course of a school day.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

I've lamented the fact, we've talked about this internally. I've I've lamented the fact that maybe we haven't been a little bit more bold or aggressive with a, hey, here's exactly where we're stand on this. At the same time, it's been interesting to kind of watch what's happening across the country, as you put it. You have states like Kansas that have just said, the legislature has come out and said, hey, we're banning all phones and devices in schools. You figure out how to make that work to the school districts, and now they're dealing with the pushback on that. We're not a K-12. And so it's very much commonplace at middle schools, and I think appropriately so, to say, hey, we're not having phones.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

And a lot of those smaller K-12 schools with a smaller high school have been able to kind of shift that into the high school grades. And I would say I've talked to leaders and administrators at some of those schools, have maybe done that fairly effectively. Uh, but what do you do with a larger high school uh where you just have nine through 12, where they're used to having their devices with them? Part of the problem to answer your question, part of the problem is probably a misunderstanding of even some of the verbiage around it. Uh some people, when they say, hey, we want a bell to bell ban on cell phones, what does that mean? Does that mean from the start of the school day to the end of the school day? And that's typically what it means. You don't, you're not allowed to have it. It's locked up, it's in a yonder pouch. You have to have it in your locker, you have to keep, you know, some places like, hey, we don't, we're not going to use them in the classroom environments, right? But we're going to allow their usage, passing periods, when you step off campus, lunches, study halls, things like that. So I've I've tried to do a good job of kind of differentiating that with our parents that I've talked to to say, I agree with you that we want distraction-free classrooms. I agree with you that we have enough evidence and research to suggest that lots and lots of screen time screen time for our kids isn't healthy. Like people have read The Anxious Generation, they've they've read these books around kind of screen time and phones. I I'm in complete agreement with that. I have I have three teenagers as well, right? So I'm constantly concerned with their overall screen time, their device usage, right? Because the less less is better. I think we know that. I think research shows that. Or are we saying, look, you don't get to touch a phone and in reality, touch a device, I think, from the minute you walk on campus to the minute that you leave. There are some school districts, I think DPS is headed that direction. I think that's recent, um, that have gone that road. There are some states that are trying to go that road. Colorado's legislature has said simply to the school districts, you have to have a plan. What's your plan?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

So that's what the public school districts are trying to figure out. I will give a lot of credit to Douglas County School District for their level of research. I knew when we started the year that they were diving in in the fall to kind of pull their parents, to kind of see what they wanted. And they did that, and those results came out in April. And it largely showed that at the high school level, they're kind of going for the limit the distractions in the classrooms, make those classrooms about interaction without devices, get them off their phones, get them off their iPads, and let's just educational minded. We don't want them. But then passing periods, study halls, lunches, we're not we're not gonna come we're not gonna police the device usage, basically. That'll be our that'll be our approach in the fall. Okay. So we won't be a full cell phone ban. We're not we're not locking them up in pouches, we're not punishing a kid if if their phone comes out in their study hall or in their lunch, and I'll circle back to that in a minute. And we've always had an emphasis on distraction-free girl classrooms. Don't get me wrong. Yes, yes, but we're gonna have more of an emphasis on that, right? Like all of our classrooms have pouches. Put that phone in the pouch, the basket, uh, put it away, and let your 40 minutes of class be without that device so that the majority of your school day, 70% plus of your school day, isn't spent on that device. Uh Mr. Ness and I figured out that if if you looked at your device, maybe, and it's hard to look at your device in a passing period here because you got like four or five minutes and you've got to get from one point to the other. I've watched our hallways. It's not like every kid's walking with their with their head down because you'll get run over. Um so like, but so really you're talking about lunches and study halls, and if if you're using it half that time, maybe a little passing period, you might be in the 40 to 50 minute, maybe a little bit more total range of using a device. If we're disciplined in the classrooms, that the teachers would never say, oh, hey, okay, you got five minutes left. Feel free to play video games on your phone. That's not what we're going for. So we're we're gonna double down on that emphasis. So distraction free classrooms. We're not gonna police device usage uh outside of that, other than appropriate use. And I think probably trying to find ways to encourage and mentor our students to be aware of the dangers of screen time and excessive usage and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, yes. I think even being aware of how many hours a day you are on your device, because your device will tell you that. It's just helpful. It's kind of eye-opening sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah. Okay. I think I think you're right. I and I think the culture can shift on that a little bit. It goes to a maybe a larger theory, and these are things that we've talked about, things Hannah, that you and I have talked about as well. Like, how do you motivate, how do you motivate an adolescent, right? Like it's the it's the big question. And there's a lot of theories out there I don't ascribe to any one in particular, but I do generally wrap my brain around the fact that a high school student, an adolescent, desires respect and they desire social status. That that's a big motivation for high school kids. And if I just want to be 100% honest and transparent, I don't know that I want to go to war with our entire student body over their device usage. The current research is showing that the things that we think are gonna improve in one, two, or three years by saying, hey, you can't have a phone, you can't have an iPad, you can't do any of that. Like we're it doesn't show that improvement, right? In fact, there's a recent study that was published in the New York Times actually showed that your discipline problems in your school are worse than the first year. That makes sense. Well, it makes sense. You've you've basically gone to war with your student body or your device usage, you're gonna end up with more discipline issues. Yeah. Um I've had parents say to me, like, there's just not a there seems to be a lack of will to ban them, right? Like if you really wanted to, you could. I get that. For me, it's not a and for us, I want to say at Lutheran High, it's not really a lack of will. It's we could take that approach. We could say, okay, you got your adolescence, your brains aren't developed, you don't know what you're doing. This is what's best for you. We're gonna turn the screws, we're gonna, we're gonna stand outside our classrooms. Any kid that walks by in a past appear with the phone out, we're gonna yank him out, we're gonna take the phone away. You know, it happens one time, you get a detention, second time you're suspended, third time you're out. Like we could do that, right? I'm just not convinced that it gets us to an end goal that we want. And the end goal that we want is healthy teenagers who are concerned and motivated to monitor their own screen time.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Now, look, I get it. Sometimes I look at my kids, I stick my hand out, and I say, I want all three of your phones, and I want them now, right? Because we're gonna take a car ride and you're gonna converse with us like normal human beings, right? Like, like I understand it, right? And I get it that there's a time to ban, there's a time to turn the screws, there's a time to do that. I think, with an overall approach, if we want to motivate our teenagers or high school kids to have less screen time, we do it through a lens of respect. We do it through a lens of probably getting them involved too in what that might look like. Look, if we can keep our classrooms distraction free, then I think it shifts to kind of a cool question. How can we make lunch? Let's start there. How can we make lunch a place where you don't have I mean, if you stood at the railing and looked at our lunches, our kids are interacting with each other. It's not silence because the whole no, right? Like the they're interacting. But yes, there are some kids that six of them are playing the same video game on their phones at lunch, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

So instead of saying, oh gosh, you're now being disciplined for that or there's consequence for that, how do we how do we set a tone to potentially kind of motivate them to say, nope, even at lunch, right? Put that thing away. Right. You know you're gonna get you're gonna be on it three hours when you get home anyway.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Right?

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Like your friends are here.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Right, your friends are here. That's an excellent way of putting that. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we can engage our students to kind of figure out clever ways to do that, to kind of figure out uh how to motivate them. And to be fair, I actually think that's research-based. Uh when it comes to like campaigns to educate youth, when you look at the research on what was effective, what was not, it's pretty fascinating. And one of the most effective ways to kind of motivate an adolescent is to have them feel like uh, what's the best way to put it, that that they're that they're getting suckered in or tricked into something that's bad for them.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, back with smoking campaigns, the most effective campaigns were sometimes when you could present that look at what they're trying to do to you with their advertisements. They're trying to suck you in. They're trying to, they're trying to get you to do something that's not good for you. And then there was backlash.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Right? I've often said I I'm not sure the devices are the problem. I actually think sometimes like the social media algorithms are the problem. So we have to educate our kids to say, look, don't let them do that to you. Right. You know? And I think that that could be effective and keep the respect and the social status uh in play. And I know not everybody will agree with it. But that's I mean, I think that's where we're headed for in about a month.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

I think parents, a lot of parents who are big fans of the full blanket ban, they just want school to look like it looked like when they were there. I think they're so do I. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah. I mean, we all think that, right? We all think that that high school is so much better when we were there. And I you know, I do think there's some truth to that. They and it's played up, right? You get on social media, you see the videos all the time. Hey, look at look at these high school kids from the 80s with their with their wild hair and they're just talking and they're sitting around, they're playing ping pong. Yeah, like yeah, like I get it. I I I want that too for them. Um, and yes, we all think that it was it was so much better when we didn't have the devices, and in some ways it was, but these are not kids that have never they've never not had them. Right. Right. And again, I'm not I'm not trying to make excuses, but our banning of them during the day is not going to make them like we were when we were in high school.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yes. Yeah. And I think you said it will. They're gonna go home and be on their phone. So really, I mean, uh all things at Lutheran High, we're trying to partner with the parents. We're not we're not trying to do one thing here and you guys are doing a separate thing at home. Like we want to be walking the same path. That's a that's true in a lot of areas. So you kind of talked about the policy, distraction free classrooms, not policing lunches and passing periods and and study halls. How how married are you to this policy?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Uh to know me well, Hannah, is to know that um loosely is probably the right word.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Um we've taken our time with this. We we think this is the right approach for us. We think it matches what else is going on in our in our community and our district. I think it's the right fit. I I think the next step is to continue to educate our kids on, hey, the dangers of screen time, reducing screen time, the the dangers of social media algorithms, that type of thing, possibly engage them as to how to how can we get you to interact more during lunches, study halls at some level, passing periods, that type of thing. Um, so I'm excited about that. I I think that that can be really effective. But no, I'm not married to it to the point where we wouldn't shift from it, right? I I've told some parents that look, if somebody at the high school level can figure out a way to do the ban and not kind of create an underground I need to get on my device subculture. Like I'm all in for considering something like that. So I'm loosely married for what we're doing moving forward. You know, I talked to I I talked to uh a college friend of my daughter's this year who went to a high school that had the had the yonder pouches. And if you don't know what that is, it's like you walk in in the morning and the school administration watches you put your phone in this pouch and you lock it up, and then the the only way you can get to it is to have it like a magnetic key, unlock it. And I asked her, you know, like she was at a school that did that for a couple years. I said, how'd that go? And she said, Well, I definitely was on my phone less. I said, and that was good. She says, Well, no, I just put all the apps from my phone onto my Chromebook, I think she said. And yeah, so it didn't really decrease my overall screen time. She said, but I was on my phone less. I said, like, what did other did other kids were they accepting of it as you were? And she goes, no, they she said that there actually were kids, I don't know if she called them key masters, but kids that got the magnetic lock through some back channel. I don't know. Of course, of course. You could have you could get your pouch opened if you needed to. See, and I and I just don't like that. I yeah, and and maybe I'm naive, but I I don't want that. But at the same time, if there's a method or a manner and the trend works towards the point where this is the right thing to do. If research starts to show that five, six, seven years down the road, high schools banning device usage from the start of the day to the end of the day benefits the school, benefits the kids at a super high level above baseline. Look, I yeah, I could be persuaded.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned Chromebooks and then iPads are the other offender. So are those still going to be allowed in the classroom? Because we've always been a bring your own device school.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah, that's a good question. Um again, our end goal is distraction-free classroom. So it it uh we're not saying you can't use technology for something educational-minded. What it means is is that our teachers have to do a very solid job of when its usage can shift into their personal entertainment or their distraction. Yeah. And good teachers will do that, right? And we hire good teachers. So a good teacher will say, Okay, whatever your device is, pull that out, go to this website, do this, you know, whatever is a part of it, but then has to cut that off and say, okay, now they get put away, that type of thing, because now we're doing this, that, you know. So again, it's distraction free.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

That's what we're going for. Right. And it uh yeah, look, it's it's sometimes as difficult as a teacher, for sure, right? Like I we have teachers that would love to ban the devices too, and that's uh I get it. I understand it's difficult, uh for sure. Um, but that's I think that answers your question. I think we for educational purposes, yes. But I don't know that we've been super heavy on that usage in the past, right? Yeah there actually is research that shows that like technology in a classroom isn't really making our kids perform better. Um so I I don't know that we've been a school where tech in a classroom or their individual tech in a classroom is like a uh daily priority. You know, I think it gets used as appropriate uh for teachers who do a good job designing their lessons.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Yeah. Several of our teachers already have their own pouches in the class. And when a student walks in, you put your phone down. Oh, every that's alright.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Every room at Lutheran High has has a cell phone pouch. And yes, I think the majority of our teachers are put it in a pouch, put it in a basket, put it on the table, make sure I don't see it or I take it away, turn it off, it's that type of thing. So yeah, it's not like we're starting from scratch. Yeah. And I want to give the impression that it's been the Wild West with devices in our classrooms. But uh I mean we can we can definitely uh make it a focus, clean things up, um, and then I think shift our attention to how do we motivate these kids in their non-instructional times to interact, to engage, to not be on their devices.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

So going back to that, um something we've also talked about internally is encouraging our own staff to be good examples and be good models of what cell phone usage looks like. Because if if you have a group of teachers out on lunch duty all staring at their device, well, what kind of example is that? We don't have to talk about this.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

No, that's it. No, it's a Yeah, I mean yeah, we're not really any different than the teenagers running around our building for sure, right? I mean, I I I wish. We were. But if I on occasion walking through the hallway, do I do I glance down at a text? Well, yes. If I'm presenting in a classroom, am I distracted my my device? No. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

But those social times, you make a good point, right? Like if we're if we want to turn lunch into a distraction-free place as well, where our kids are interacting with each other and engaging, yeah, staff's going to have to lead the way on that as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

So it'll be it'll be fun. Yeah. Okay, so accountability obviously matters here. Even even without the blanket ban, even without the locking up of the phones, account maybe even matters more, because they will have their devices with them. How does that look? What are we going to do?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Well, I don't know that it changes a ton. I mean, we if a kid, if a teacher is saying, hey, this is not appropriate time for device usage, a student violates that, or phones go in a pouch, and then they walk by a student who's, you know, underneath the decks texting because they didn't put their phone in, or they, you know, I've heard stories of burner phones and three or four. One goes in a stories of kids that put their case in the pouch and turn it the other way so they think the phone. Right. So but anytime you get that type of thing where they're really just not following instructions, they're they're disciplined, right? Like it, yes, there's consequence there. Phones that can be taken away, turned into the office, you have to come get them at the end of the day. I think I don't know what our handbook says, but I don't know if you have to buy them back or something like that. Um, but it uh you know, I will just continue to do that because at the end of the day, really discipline at high school is pretty simple. It's kind of like do what I tell you. Yeah, right. And so uh I uh yeah, I think that's the level of accountability we're looking for. And then I think more positive mentoring approach to their device usage as it relates to non-instructional time.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Awesome. Okay, my last question for you is how can parents help support our efforts? What what do we need from parents in this?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think we're all facing the same battle, right? We we recognize, I think, the research is showing that like man, this that constant screen time is not super healthy, can sometimes be really damaging to our kids. And especially, especially if we've got kids that that struggle, struggle to make connections, struggle socially, um maybe uh are are struggling with with who they are, with their identity, right? And and that phone and that interaction and that social media can fill that gap, and it can fill that gap in an unhealthy way. Uh and we're not by taking this approach with devices, we're not we're not saying that that doesn't exist, right? Um so you know, like if a parent reaches out to us and says, We're really trying to limit our son or daughter's screen time or phone, or they don't have one, or we don't want them to have uh we would come alongside that and say, And that would not be the first time this has happened. No, no, we've we've had that 10 years ago, right? Right? Like where we want to partner with parents as to what's best uh for their for their kid and where they're where they are and where they are and kind of their walk with the Lord and how they're being developed and and that type of thing. And so yeah, I I I want to encourage that um the parents being supportive of our distraction-free classrooms, yeah, right? Like, like if you gotta get a hold of your kid and you've looked at the bell schedule and you know they're halfway through their math class and their device is on the wall and they don't get to answer your text until 20 minutes later when they're in the passing period or they get to their lunch, maybe you know, don't yell at them for that. We want them not on their phones there, but also to make use of the front office, right? Like call in and say, Hey, can you get this message to my kid? Or we're having a family emergency, god forbid, and yeah, you know, you use the front office. Where I mean, we all I don't want to say we all, but like I enjoy texting my kids during the day. I don't have the expectation that they're gonna answer immediately. Yeah, I I'll be fair, honest, at one time one of them did answer me right away, and I think my response was, I'm not sure why you're texting in class, but you know, why don't yeah. Can't win. No, they well, not everybody can't win. My kids can't win with me, but yeah. Um yeah. Uh so just be supportive of that. Be supportive of our distraction free questions, but then work with us, partner with us if we're if we're dealing with somebody who's struggling with their screen time and their usage and stuff like that. We we want to be supportive of that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Yeah. All right. This this made me think of another question. We are first and foremost, we're a Christian community, we are Christian school. And that I think does play a piece in every single policy we've write, obviously. How is encouraging Christian community in our in our students, how has that played a role in in what we're trying to do here?

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, that's a really good question. And let me let me take it to another level theologically. Um, our devices, and I I use that word devices because if you ban the phones, they're going to their iPads. Totally. Look, Apple will create a non-phone device that's like medium-sized between a phone and an iPad for the schools that ban phones, right? Like so I I say it in terms of devices. Like it's to consider that question. Are devices inherently evil, right? And I think that's a worthy consideration, right? Is banning them the same way we would ban drug use or something like that. I I get that, I get that approach. I think right now we're in a camp of maybe it's afra. It's not uh it's not evil in and of itself, but motivations and usage can can push it in that direction. So I think that's where we are from kind of a theological perspective on it. From a Christian community perspective and a culture perspective, yeah, we want appropriate interaction. You can have appropriate device or interact electronic interaction with people. We absolutely we have electronic submission. These kids are going to go to college where Canvas is used just like we use it, where they have to upload. Like, like that's we get that feedback from kids that are like, yeah, we're prepared for college because of of how you do this at Lutheran High. I think that's awesome. Yes. But that's so there is appropriate interaction in that fashion, but we want we want authentic interaction, right? And authentic interaction probably is best done face to face.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

We've we don't have a ton of online, I don't think we have any straight online classes. We partner with some institution, we've done some hybrid things in the past, but one of the reasons that we don't is because we value that face-to-face interaction with our instructor, with a mentor, if you will. And so we we we want that, we want to create that, we want to work hard uh to achieve that because I uh is it is it key to Christian community? I I don't know, but I think it's super important. I think I think it's an interaction that's at a level that that that we want more so than electronic interaction. And we'll continue to work for that. Look, well, you kind of go to our chapels. I mean, we're having we have like the a 1200 plus people in a chapel service where at the best we can, the devices are out of sight, right? Worshiping God and interacting with each other and listening to a speaker. I mean, like we kinda want we kind of want eight, seven, eight classes of looking like that, yeah. And then encourage them in their in those non-times or non-instructional non-chapel times to talk to each other, you know, interact, have some fun. Yeah. Like high schools look the same for the last what hundred years? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Why?

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Because teenagers want to show up, gather respect and social status, and interact with other adolescents, with other peers. It's what it's what they're it's what God made them to do.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Right? So let's foster that as best as we can.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah. Awesome. Dan, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I love talking to you, and our parents love hearing from you. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Oh, I appreciate the compliment, whether that's true or not. But uh yeah, thanks, Hannah. I appreciate it.