Cape Girardeau school board to implement cellphone pouches at junior high, buy out leased pouches at high school

The Cape Girardeau School District Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to implement the YONDR cellphone pouches at Terry W. Kitchen Central Junior High School for the 2024-25 school year, in addition to buying out the current stock of pouches that are currently being leased to Cape Central High School.

Dr. Brice Beck, deputy superintendent of K-12 education, said the recommendation to implement the use of YONDR pouches at the junior high level stems from a request to do so by junior high principal Garett Cook.

“After seeing the success at the high school this year, Mr. Cook has come forward and made a request to implement the same program in his building,” Beck said. “He said he sees outstanding potential benefits down the line with seventh through 12th programming. He’s looking at it from minimizing distractions and maximizing production with the ICU program working in tandem with that.”

The cost to implement the program is not to exceed $20,775. Line-item costs include the YONDR Education Package, which costs $19,500 and includes a pouch for each student, medical pouches, unlocking bases, storage accessories, implementation planning support, school resource templates, virtual training, professional development materials and customer support access. In addition, there is a $3,000 charge for EDU XL pouch inventory and $1,050 in shipping costs. However, the junior high will receive a new-school discount worth $2,775.

“It’s the same stuff we dealt with (at) our high school rollout,” Beck said. “This is just about half of your student enrollment from your initial one. Versus that $28,500, you’re seeing just slightly over $20,000 for startup (costs).”

Board member Veronica Langston raised the question of how much costs will be when a new class moves up to the junior high school, which is estimated to be approximately $11,000.

“I would default back to $30 per pouch,” Beck said. “Half of our class at the junior high right now is roughly 275-300 kids, so 300 times 30 gives you your number immediately. It’s about $9,000. That’s subject to purchasing costs, shipping and all that normal stuff, but it will be in that roundabout.”

Newly elected board member Kristal Flentge inquired why the district has decided to implement the pouches into the schools rather than enforcing already-existing policies, an issue many parents have also raised.

“For years, we’ve had policies that would either restrict or limit cellphone use, especially at the secondary level because that’s where it becomes more prevalent,” Beck said. “Kids really start getting cellphones a lot in middle school, to be honest with you, but they’re not as invested or engaged into so many platforms on the cellphones. By the time they reach junior high and high school, they’re engaged in tons of social media platforms. There’s all this instant access to all of the technology out there. Research, rotating back, a big thing we talked about in our initial presentation is for years, people told everybody that cigarettes are really bad for you and you just shouldn’t smoke because it’s going to harm you. It didn’t stop people from smoking. That same type of addictive behavior has now moved to cellphones, because people are so connected with every aspect of their lives through their cellphones, and adults are guilty of that, too.

“Not that it can’t be used appropriately or responsibly, but what we were seeing in the high school was a shift from reinforcing our communication and our policy expectations. It turned into a constant battle for teachers. It was a battle to get (students) to work on assignments and it was a battle to get them re-engaged in the activities that are occurring in class because they’re constantly being distracted by cellphones. When addressing the use of cellphones, it would escalate to something much higher than a cellphone referral. It would lead to loss of instructional time, possible suspension, ISS assignments and things like that. ... We just want to reset everybody’s mind frame and when you come into the building, it’s a cellphone-free environment. Our priority is on teaching and learning at all times, and we want to minimize distractions and maximize learning for students. I think so far our feedback from our staff has proven that that’s occurring.”

The board also approved a buyout for the YONDR pouches currently being used at the high school not to exceed $22,671, including $16,500 for purchasing the 550 pouches distributed at the high school and an education buyout package costing $7,260. The district received a $1,089 YONDR education discount and will have the $330 in shipping costs waived.

According to Beck, YONDR Inc. no longer allows schools to lease the products and has increased prices since the pouches were implemented at Cape Central.

“The biggest change was YONDR Inc. changed their pricing model after the first year of implementation. If you remember, when we adopted the program the previous year, I said we’re actually leasing these materials from YONDR and then we re-supply our supplies on an annual basis for those kids going out of the high school,” Beck explained. “Moving into 24-25, that was no longer a pricing option offered by the company. Basically, they have become so popular that they don’t have to offer that anymore. It’s either, ‘You can either purchase our equipment or you cannot use our product.’”

Beck estimated the cost would have been $10,000-12,000 before YONDR changed its business model to disallow leasing. After buying out the current inventory, the district will only have to reorder inventory each year to replace those from the graduating class as students decorate the pouches and are allowed to keep them upon graduation.

“We’re losing because they decorate them when they receive them to create that buy-in, that participation and make it a little more individualized to the students,” Beck said. “This year, that kind of sparked certain classes of students and teachers, and it caught on like wildfire. Now we’ve got students that are showing their pouches off and they’re super proud of what their pouch looks like. It’s a choice, obviously, to allow them to do that. But if you don’t, you still have to label the pouch, so you’re going to damage it, so to speak, in some fashion.”

In other business news, the board approved the purchase of K-12 social studies textbook materials for $403,800.74, as well as the purchase of kitchen equipment for the new location of Cape Central Academy not to exceed $55,000.