Students and teachers at schools across the U.S. continue to report positive results from student cell phone bans, both in terms of disciplinary issues and academic performance.

At Alabama’s Flomation High School, Principal Mark Harbison told WPMI the school purchased 1,800 Yondr pouches for $20 each and are requiring students to lock their phones inside during the school day.

“We went to visit a school in Montgomery on a tour … and saw how they did it,” he said. “As soon as we saw the students interacting with each other and how they did the process, we wanted to be a part of that.”

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Teacher Gina Nall said school staff have noticed a significant improvement since the school implemented the plan this year.

“This year, it’s so much more of students’ attention being back on what it should be,” she told WPMI. “In the past, we’ve seen students whose phones may have been on vibrate. When they hear that sound, their attention goes to, ‘Who’s texting me?’ Or on Snapchat or ‘Who’s calling me?’”

Before the change, “you couldn’t keep kids off them,” Harbison said.

“You would walk into a classroom and they’re going to have phones out,” he said. “It’s a constant discipline problem. Things happen outside of school get brought into school because of social media and it just builds and builds and builds.”

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The dynamic is different now, according to Nall.

“From a teacher’s perspective, or even in the hallway, students are now looking at one another,” she said. “We see their eyes. They’re talking and communicating and learning those types of skills, too.”

At least one student who spoke with WPMI said the change has benefitted them outside of school, as well.

“I do like it. Honestly, it’s been an adjustment,” the student said. “It’s easier to have self-discipline with my phone at home now because I don’t have it all day at school. So, I don’t have to have it all the time.”

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found about 72% of high school teachers in the U.S. report cellphones have become a significant problem in classrooms, while Edweek.org has correlated those issues with poor academic performance.

The problems, from fights started on social media to classroom distractions and issues with mental health, have convinced lawmakers in more than a half-dozen states to impose statewide bans. And while liberal states including California and New York are currently considering the same, Michigan lawmakers have remained hostile to the move despite the documented benefits.

In Ohio’s Akron Public Schools, those benefits have created a “significantly better, friendlier, and safer” school day for students since the district made the change last year, WOIO reports.

“I think students felt a lot more comfortable with the process because they know that I still get to keep my phone but I know when I’m in classes that phone is not distracting me and keeping me from my learning,” Jessica Sax, principal at Hyle Community Learning Center, told the news site.

Students there also use the Yondr pouch to secure their phones during the school day, and use a magnet provided by the district to unlock the pouch after classes conclude. The result, Sax said, is better grades and less fights.

“We have a seen a significant decrease in the number of what we would say were pre-planned fighting where students were texting, messaging each other, talking about going and meeting somewhere in the building or classroom and fights occurring,” Sax said. “This is something that is positively impacting our district, positively impacting our students, and I would say this is something we should continue with.”

Others, meanwhile, have noted the political tides have turned against cell phones in schools, with the Financial Times pointing to bans in both conservative and liberal communities driven by the wave of positive results from phone bans.

“There is a deep hunger across the US and around the world: parents, teachers and teens themselves want . . . to roll back the phone-based childhood,” Zach Rausch, chief researcher on Jonathan Haidt’s new bestseller, The Anxious Generation, told the financial site.

Rausch described the situation as “collective action problem: if everyone else is on their phones and you’re not [teens are] in jeopardy of social isolation . . . but when you take away these devices at group level the incentive to use them tends to go down.”