By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–Union City Schools is promoting the old “Let kids be kids” adage as part of the system’s innovative educational process.
Director of Schools Wes Kennedy is asking parents and guardians of UC Elementary and Middle School students to commit to the ‘Wait Until 8th’ program in an effort to promote the best environment, education, and childhood for young people.
The ‘Wait Until 8th’ pledge empowers parents to rally together to delay giving children a smartphone until at least the end of the 8th grade.
The pledge – which is for smartphones only – can be signed at www.waituntil8th.org, with a UCSS goal of having as many families as possible signed up by May 19. A pledge becomes active once 10 or more families from a grade at a particular school sign, and is intended to unify parents as they seek to help their children avoid many of the distractions and potential dangers of a smartphone.
Detailed information can be found under the dropdown Quick Links menu on the Union City Schools website, www.tornadotouch.net.
Organizers insist the pledge was designed to take the pressure off parents who fear the fallout from delaying the purchase of a smartphone for their child.
“We believe this is a great program, and that banding together will decrease the pressure on parents and their kids of having to get a smartphone just because everyone else has one,” Kennedy said. “If together we say: ‘not yet,’ it gives our parents and guardians a support base in this decision.”
More than 100,000 families from all 50 states have said “yes” to waiting for the smartphone until their child completes the 8th grade.
UC Schools Director of Special Populations and Pre-K, Laney Rogers, first identified the program’s potential benefits.
“You can’t argue with statistics. Our children are missing the basic developmental stages and experiences that contribute to a happy and healthy future,” she said. “There is evidence and research to support the harmful effects smartphones and technology have caused over the last 20 years of my tenure as an educator. That data simply can’t be ignored.
“I wish I had this information and the opportunity to stand with other parents when my child was younger. Technology is a wonderful thing, but it has no business resting in the hands of children, to be used at their leisure as their personal device.”
Though the pledge is designed for smartphones only, a parent/guardian can still sign if their child has a basic phone that has only text and call options.