Thoughts on Yondr & cell phone ban trend in American schools
Last night, while babysitting my grandkids, my oldest granddaughter approached me with a new situation she is dealing with at her middle school in Newton, Massachusetts. She started explaining to me that the school had issued new containment bags in order to lock up all the school children’s phones throughout the school day.
Before I had fully grasped the notion, she was well on her way to give me all of her valid concerns.
Essentially, each child was issued a Yondr bag with a metal locking device. The bag snaps together tightly and you cannot open it without a Yondr base using a powerful magnet. Students are required to put their phones inside this bag, lock it and have the teacher check it before beginning their day.
At the end of every school day 435 students in her particular school must line up at two unlocking bases. This is a line of more than 200 students at each machine as they exit the school.
If a student runs out of the school and forgets to unlock it, his or her phone will be jailed until the end of the following school day. I can only imagine the repercussions for a family whose child forgets to unlock their phone on a Friday.
And what about children who rush out of school to pick up a younger sibling and forget to unlock it? Or children who need it for a variety of other reasons? Today’s parents buy cell phones for their children because they need to be able to contact them. Society today is nearly impossible to navigate without them. If I was paying for my child’s phone I would be livid at this gross overstepping.
These bags also have a sharp metal pin that my granddaughter fears will be used as a weapon. Also the top is bendable and the body of the bag containing the phone is quite hard, and she said kids were already using them as weapons when locked.
Each child was told that if they lose or damage their Yondr pouch they will be required to pay $30 to the school in order to replace it. Yondr pouches appear to cost between $25 and $30 per student. The set includes the pouches, the unlocking bases, and other accessories.
As of 2023 Newton schools were reported to have 11,717 students enrolled across the town, which would run Yondr pouches acquisition at the cost of ~ $350,000. My granddaughter’s school of 435 students, must’ve paid around $13,050 for Yondr.
This is not an insignificant amount of money. Were Newton parents properly notified of this? How did it get implemented in Newton schools?
“Cellphone free classrooms are now in place in every school from Kindergarten through Grade 12 in the Newton Public Schools.
The new practice, supported unanimously by the Newton School Committee at our meeting on Monday night, comes after parents, caregivers, educators and medical professionals not just in Newton but also nationwide have raised concerns. Cellphones and other personal electronic devices have had deleterious impacts on students’ mental health, cognition, attention spans, social lives, brain development and academic learning.” https://www.newtonma.gov/Home/Components/News/News/592/866
Per the article in the Newton Beacon:
“Mayor Ruthanne Fuller was able to obtain earmark funds from state senator Cindy Creem so that all middle schools in the district would be supplied with Yondr pouches.”
Mayor of Newton, Ruthanne Fuller is well-known for many highly objectionable policies aligned with Agenda21 and this seemingly well-meaning initiative of cell-phone ban is actually reeking of government overreach and obedience training when you consider the bigger picture and the people involved.
Take Mayor Fuller’s “Climate Action Plan” and Newton’s recent “Fossil-Fuel Free Ordinance” that passed in 2024. A simple poll on NextDoor shows 55% disapproval rate and 50% of the responders not even being aware of this major change in the City.
“The Mayor is determined to make Newton a green city and leader in environmental sustainability. In 2019, the Mayor developed the City’s first ever Climate Action Plan that outlines the necessary steps to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, emphasizing energy conservation, thoughtful consumption and disposal, greening Newton’s transportation and moving away from fossil fuels.” https://www.newtonma.gov/government/mayor-fuller/biography
Senator Cindy Creem’s page tells a similar story on Agenda21 advancement with legislation like:
SD.753 An Act to incentivize the adoption of local climate resilience policies
SD.757 An Act promoting access to zero-emission school buses
Other questions come to mind like: Who owns Yondr? Who are the stockholders and what is the real story behind this product?
Yondr is owned by Cathexis Group, and it has received significant investments from Apollo Global Management and DigitalBridge - a lot to explore here when time permits. For example, “DigitalBridge is a leading global alternative asset manager dedicated to investing in digital infrastructure. DigitalBridge invests in companies that provide infrastructure solutions focused on AI and next-generation digital infrastructure, delivering a converged network experience for an increasingly connected world.” - so what’s in it for DigitalBridge?
Yondr was founded in 2014 by Graham Dugoni. He attended a Jesuit high school and Duke University before becoming a professional soccer player. According to Wikipedia: “After witnessing an intoxicated man dancing and people filming him, he questioned the effects of technology on personal privacy and freedom of expression.”
Give me a break.
We’re being sold on the idea of “the new normal” of ambient AI and Internet of Things (IoT) / Internet Of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT), so what personal privacy, especially in public places, are we talking about here?!
I have discovered that Yondr pouches are also being used by courthouses as well as entertainment / concert venues. For example, Guns and Roses and Bob Dylan have required Yondr pouches recently:
https://help.ticketmaster.com/hc/en-us/articles/9613691583121-What-is-a-Yondr-Pouch-
There is a lot to further research and unpack on this topic, including the rules around cell phones not being allowed in courthouses. I bore witness to the bogus trial of Catherine Vitale and Shannon Llewellyn and other cases in Boston courts, where locking up cell phones would lead to being unable to prove abuse of Constitutional and civil rights when abusers think they will not be filmed.
Going back to the use of Yondr pouches in schools, it feels like deprivation of parental and student rights, and even a form of censorship. It is further obedience training of our children, following the era of COVID mandates that imprinted unacceptable, forced behavioral patterns on young minds. It reeks of control and manipulation. This is also a big waste of our tax dollars. I think parents need to speak up against this trend right away. We need to support our kids and grandkids, they’re not lab rats to experiment on. Adults can decide if they’re OK with Yondr pouches or want to stop spending their money at venues that lock up their phones, but leave children out of this till they are old enough to make conscious personal choices.
If it’s about minimizing online time for children during school day without compromising their safety and freedom to communicate with their families, perhaps the school can propose simple flip phones to be purchased by parents instead of imposing restrictions on communications and the unnecessary spending on Yondr.
We absolutely need to get Yondr pouches out of courthouses and schools in my opinion.
- CK