Starting next fall, students will have to turn off their cellphones and stow them in backpacks or lockers throughout the school day — 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. — including free periods, lab periods and passing periods. Students will be allowed to use their phones on campus outside of school hours, inside Café Lab during lunch and if they leave campus during the day.
The administration announced the new high school phone policy with a presentation in each advisory on May 27.
According to the Policy FAQ, the policy’s goals are to facilitate greater social connection in the community, promote in-class focus and improve students’ mental health.
Principal Martin Woods, who was involved in deciding the final policy alongside other administrators, clarified that the priority when creating the policy was social interaction, but he expects to see academic performance improve as well.
“It’s more social,” he said. “But I think we’re actually going to see an uptick in academics as well, an increase in engagement academically.”
He attributes this to students no longer having access to their phones during lab periods when they do not have a class, resulting in a greater focus on school work at those times.
“I think the goal, or the vision, was to use these lab periods for things that are related to academics,” Mr. Woods said. “Students can use their free time throughout the day to touch upon work, to really engage academically.”
Before the policy was announced, librarian Susan Augustine, a member of the cellphone committee since its inception, emphasized that the cellphone policy is a response to research about mental health and the addictive quality of phones.
Ross Hunefeld, a math teacher, also has concerns about phone addiction. However, he thinks the policy potentially frames this as an issue solely for students, when everyone is struggling to manage their reliance on phones.
“I always think of it as a dopamine machine,” he said, “and I think part of the framing of this is it seems like adults telling students, ‘This is how you should think about this,’ when I think all of us have the same issue.”
Prior to this school year, Mr. Hunefeld was the dean of students for the middle school, which has an “away all day” policy, informing his perspective on implementing a phone ban in the high school.
He worries a phone ban for older students could create a “cops and robbers” effect between students and teachers that is not commensurate with the maturity level of students.
“We’re creating a rule which takes things that are currently OK and makes them against the rules,” he said, “so it could create this dynamic where it’s like a cops and robbers dynamic. That’s something I think existed when I was in the middle school.”
Sophomore Priya Yamada said she’s heard many students have strong negative reactions. She said she understands the reasoning behind the policy but that the presentation — which included a video where teachers dressed as students performed educational skits — should have emphasized the rationale.
“I don’t disagree with the actual fundamentals of the policy,” she said, “because statistics do show that students are struggling. I think that presentation of the video was slightly condescending and a little patronizing, and I think that it would be more effective to get their point across by just explicitly stating what they’re doing and why.”
If the policy is to be effective, both Priya and Mr. Hunefeld believe it has to be a collective, collaborative endeavor.
Mr. Woods identified that as one of his goals, not just for the new policy to be an attempt to create community, but for it to be a shared effort.
“Being members of the community,” he said, “I think we owe it to ourselves to make sure that we are holding each other accountable.”
