Students who need their phones for medical purposes will be issued a medical pouch that allows them access to their phone.
Overall, this will create a healthier school environment for our students and staff, said Executive Director Steve Furtado, Jr.
“At a certain level, most of us have become overly dependent on our phones and we see it as a major distraction for our students,” said Mr. Furtado. “By removing the proverbial ‘elephant in the room,’ we expect to see higher student engagement in the classroom and the cafeteria, with students interacting with their teachers and with each other instead of with their phones.”
Mr. Furtado explains that the school had already strictly limited mobile phone use in the middle school and had placed lesser restrictions at the high school level. Teachers and administrators, however, found the phones continued to be a major distraction with instructional time lost having to continually remind students to put their phones away.
The decision to join numerous other schools across the country in creating a phone-free zone is rooted in the need to create classroom environments where students can learn free from distractions; reduce the incidents of cyberbullying and exposure to harmful internet content, and; increase meaningful connections between students.
“We are confident that this new policy will improve academic performance as well as the social-emotional health of our students,” Mr. Furtado said.
Open to New Bedford residents, Global Learning Charter Public School (GLCPS) is a tuition-free public charter school that currently serves 500 students in grades 5-12. Launched in 2002 as a Horace Mann charter school, GLCPS became a Commonwealth charter school in 2006. In order to generate a culture of personalization, the school setting and class sizes are deliberately small. Students, faculty and administration know each other well and teachers are able to tailor the curriculum to the needs and level of each student. GLCPS offers an exciting and challenging interdisciplinary curriculum that follows and builds upon the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. Students learn to work collaboratively in teams, use technology meaningfully in their coursework, strengthen all elements of their communication skills, as well as develop the necessary skills to become engaged and ethical contributors to a global society. GLCPS capitalizes on the exceptional resources of the region (for example, marine sciences), and ties these resources to their curriculum and instruction. Additional information is available on the school’s website,