In June 2024, GDS parent Jaclyn Rapaport ’03, along with her friend GDS third-grade parent Kit Smith, approached All-Division Health Education Department Chair Caitlin Hutcheon and Director of Student Community Programming Bobby Asher with a request: Bring the nationwide anti-phone use initiative Wait Until 8th to the GDS community.
GDS’ version of the pledge, renamed to Wait Through 8th, has the same ethos. Like the signatories of the national pledge, GDS parents will pledge to not give their children smartphones until they graduate from 8th grade. Although the pledge is not compulsory, it is the first school-sponsored regulation of out-of-school phone use. The pledge enters the GDS community in the midst of a national anti-phone movement that caused the high school to prohibit phone use during school hours this year. The lower/middle school has prohibited in-school phone use for years.
Wait Until 8th is a national pledge that parents of children under 14 years old sign, promising to wait until the end of eighth grade before giving their kids a smartphone. The initiative aims to reduce the mental health struggles, lack of sleep and behavioral disorders associated with smartphone use.
“Once we got parents telling us that they were interested in the idea of GDS having a version internally, we were motivated to do something ourselves,” Hutcheon said. “But it’s definitely inspired by the Wait Until 8th national program.”
After signing the GDS Wait Through 8th pledge, parents will receive access to a new group tab for the pledge on the MyGDS platform. The tab will contain resources regarding smartphone use and mental health, along with a roster showing every parent who has signed the pledge.
The school will send lower/middle school parents the Wait Through 8th pledge by the end of February, according to Hutcheon.
GDS Board of Trustees Chair and ninth- and seventh- grade parent Jeff Blum expressed support of the initiative during the annual Parent Corporation Meeting on Jan. 27. He urged parents to reach out to Hutcheon and Rapaport for details about signing the pledge. “It is a fabulous program,” Blum said. “It will take so much stress off of your life and your kids’ lives, I promise you.”
“It is a lot easier to be a sixth grader without a cell phone, if none of your friends have cell phones either.” Head of School Russell Shaw said during his State of the School speech on Jan. 27. “If you’re the only one without a cell phone, that can be really hard.”
According to Shaw and Hutcheon, the main goal of Wait Through 8th is to soften the blow that social media has on young kids.
“There’s a range of research showing some of the mental health impacts of social media on kids, particularly at younger ages,” Shaw said.
“All I can speak for is my own experience teaching in the middle school, especially the sleep disruption I see when kids say that they were on TikTok till 12 o’clock at night in fifth grade,” she said. “That’s really impacting the sleep that a child needs.”
The Wait Through 8th initiative will also include volunteer parent liaisons for each grade of the lower/middle school. According to Hutcheon, the parent liaisons will share phone-related news articles to promote the pledge in parent WhatsApp groups. Hutcheon said the main purpose of the liaisons is to ensure all parent communication doesn’t fall entirely on Asher, Hutcheon and Rapaport.
Another goal of the parent group chats is to create unity when it comes to smartphone use. “It’s easier together when it’s a social agreement, rather than just individuals doing it,” third- and fifth-grade parent Kevin Cross said.
Shaw told the Bit he hopes that if there is a “broad agreement among parents around the pledge, then it can make it easier for a shared commitment of ‘we’re all going to wait together.’”
“If there isn’t enough participation, kids are still going to feel excluded when they don’t have phones,” freshman Susie Gerety said.
Sophomore Zoe Freedman said a benefit of getting a smartphone earlier than 8th grade is communications with parents. “It was helpful for me to have a way to contact my parents when I wasn’t home,” she said. “When I would go to the park with my friends, or go to Georgetown, I needed a way to contact them.”
Shaw told the Bit students should advocate for themselves if they disagree with their parents’ decision to sign the pledge. He said expressing opinions to their parents is healthy. “If there’s something in your relationship at home that is not going the way that you want it to, you can have a conversation about it,” he said.
Seventh-grader Isa Wible recalled feeling disappointed before getting her first smartphone in sixth grade. “When everyone has a phone and they’re like, ‘oh, did you see what this person posted?’ you have to look over at people’s phones and you kind of feel annoyed that you don’t have one of your own,” she said.
Kindergarten parent Linda Oramasionwu-Leverette said she thinks the effects of social media on adults are already damaging, so smartphone usage should be delayed as long as possible for kids.
“I think it’s better to get a phone when you’re older because then you are more responsible,” seventh-grader Eli Leveton said. “Knowing when to look at your phone and when it’s time to do your homework is a challenge.”
Wible said that if no one had a smartphone, there would be greater community engagement in the middle school. “If a lot of your friends don’t have a phone, then you’re not feeling left out or anything because then it’s like you all don’t have one,” she said.
“Whenever my friends were looking at their phones, I wouldn’t have anything to look at. It was always kind of boring before I had a phone,” he said.
Oramasionwu-Leverette said she is happy that the program is striving to ensure no one feels isolated. “I’m heartened by the initiative,” she said.