12 August 8 - 14, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents contempt for a specific type of female out there and it shows this general contempt, I think, for people that aren’t like you. And that’s an important thing to realize,” Ses- sler said. “Dismissing people as basically lunatics just because they aren’t like you, I think, was a pretty silly statement to make.” Vance has since defended his comment, saying it was “obviously... sarcastic.” He maintains the comments were meant to cri- tique anti-family and anti-children policies within the Democratic Party, and are now being taken out of context. Debbie McClendon, a member of DFW’s Buddies Place Cat Rescue, is a Republican who is a “childless cat lady, by choice.” She agrees that Vance’s comments are being taken out of context and are a “small sen- tence within the larger speech.” “I’m a proud childless cat lady and that remark did not offend me in the least,” Mc- Clendon told the Observer. “I care more about what any candidate from either side says to the American people concerning the economy and the border, two things I care about and am very worried about.” In a country that appears to be more po- litically divided than ever, perhaps cats can be where we find some common ground, even if that wasn’t Vance’s intention. Sarah Carrasco and Lisa Dennis of Cats in the Cliff rescue do not share political ideologies, but said they both “do not identify” with Vance’s disparaging comments, and will continue working to help the “lives of those who don’t have a voice to speak.” “I don’t have kids, but I’m certainly not miserable. I love what I do and I feel that what we do actually spreads kindness and compassion, not misery. If people like us were actually running the country like he said, there would be far more understanding and love,” Carrasco told the Observer. “We still love each other as friends and put every- thing aside to help these animals. Rescuers are rescuers, no matter what.” Finally, we asked Jordan Maddox, our resident childless cat lady and social media editor for the Observer, to see where she stands on Vance’s interview. Maddox penned nearly 400 words on the “ignorance” of Vance’s statement, pointing out her personal fulfillment as a childless cat lady with a successful career, the rising costs of childcare that make motherhood unsus- tainable for many women and the threats of school shootings and social media facilita- tion of child abuse. But we think she summed it up best here: “Vance targeting ‘childless cat ladies’ seems like some sort of a projection,” Mad- dox said. “Maybe a childless cat lady broke his heart, who knows?” ▼ EDUCATION CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? MORE STUDENT PHONES WILL BE STUFFED INTO POUCHES. BY JACK MORAGLIA S tudents at Richardson and Dallas ISD schools are being sent a clear message this year: fewer phones, more learning. For the upcoming academic year, schools such as Richardson High School and Dallas ISD’s Bryan Adams High School Leadership Academy are instructing students to lock up their phones during the school day in secure pouches. “Cellphones are an important tool for all of us,” said Richardson ISD Superintendent Tabitha Branum. “But during the school day, our students need to be engaged in teaching and learning.” A company called Yondr makes the pouches, which have been used at various North Texas schools the past two school years. They are the same pouches used at some comedy shows, like John Mulaney and Dave Chappelle, to keep the jokes from es- caping to the internet. Richardson ISD aims to increase in- structional engagement, face-to-face in- teraction, academic success and teacher retention, while decreasing social media distractions and student conflict. The dis- trict is adding Berkner High School, Pearce High School and Richardson High School to the list of five schools that used Yondr last year. Texas schools’ implementation of Yondr pouches exemplifies a nationwide issue. Some 72% of high-school teachers say that cell- phone distraction is a major problem in their classroom, according to Pew Research Center. The Proliferation of Yondr Pouches Districts around the nation are cracking down on phone usage. Florida passed a law in May 2023 prohibiting cellphone use during class time and blocking social media on district-provided internet ser- vices. New York City, with the country’s largest school system, is considering a ban on cell phones. Richardson ISD and Dallas ISD already have cellphone-free policies, but enforc- ing those policies can be a challenge. Pew Research Center data indicates that in schools with an established cellphone pol- icy, 60% of high-school teachers say it is very or somewhat difficult to enforce the policies. “To ensure that all 250 [teachers] are implementing a set of guidelines exactly the same is really difficult,” Branum said at a June school board meeting. One teacher might say you can take out your phone in the last ten minutes, while an- other prohibits it. “You pit teacher against teacher. You pit the kid against the teacher,” she said. “They’re trying to navigate these different sets of expectations. It’s setting our teachers, our assistant principals and our students up for even more confrontation.” But why not just have students put their phones in a bucket on the teacher’s desk? Branum says that Yondr ensures consis- tent implementation. “You can have a great system to try to enforce the policy, but in the end, you are still dealing with a lot of hu- mans,” she said. “Ensuring consistency of implementation is really what will make or break any policy enforcement.” In Richardson ISD, the experiment be- gan in the 2022–23 school year at Forest Meadow Middle School. Principal Susan Burt credits the Yondr pouches with im- proving teacher retention and be- Unfair Park from p10 >> p14 dallasobserver.com/support Help fund our editorial supply list for this year’s election: • freelance writers • photographers • illustrators and more LEARN MORE
