New this year, both boys’ high schools have implemented pretty significant new phone use policies. Not surprising, as this has been a hot topic lately.
Technically they already had phone policies, sort of, though I think they mostly consisted of “don’t be on your phone while the teacher is teaching”. I remember reading in handbooks or classroom policy sheets that phones should be put away for the duration of classes.
However, I don’t think it was particularly enforced at either school. I know for a fact that kids often did use their phones in the classroom (though according to my kids, they supposedly only used them during free time or while just hanging out after they finished their work, etc.). I also know mine both used theirs in study hall sometimes (probably way more than sometimes) and definitely used it at lunchtime. (I have not ever been present at high school lunch, but I’d be willing to bet pretty much anything that lunchtime in almost every high school consists of kids gathered around tables all looking at their phones simultaneously…. sigh.)
As a parent, it’s a tough thing to control. I mean, short of not allowing my 17 year old to have a phone at all (not… realistic in today’s world, and especially not when he’s driving around 30 minutes from home and off at practice until 7 pm), there isn’t a great way for me to regulate if he’s on his phone at school or not.
Anyway, my kids both have excellent grades and good friends and both seem to be thriving in school, so I guess I haven’t really had major cause to take drastic measures re: their phone use at school (which until now, would have made them serious outliers among their peers).
That said, I am very pleased that both schools are greatly tightening their phone policies this year.
Ethan’s school is definitely taking the harder line. His school invested in Yondr pouches for each student. Each student has to place their phone in this pouch in the morning upon arrival and lock it (staff are at the entrances verifying this process). They keep their phones in their own possession at all times, but as they’re sealed in the pouches, they can’t access them. At the end of the day, they use “unlocking stations” which are sprinkled around the school (basically a super strong magnet) to open them. This means they can’t use their phones AT ALL from the beginning of the day to the end, even at lunch or in between classes.
Of course, I’m sure some kids could find a way around this. The obvious option to me would be to bring some old “burner” phone to place in the pouch, while keeping your real phone hidden in your backpack. But I would HOPE my kid wouldn’t do that… and anyway, they have severely increased the consequences for breaking the phone rules (culminating in suspension, I believe, after repeated offenses).
Ethan seems to indicate that it would now just be super obvious if someone were on their phone, since no one has their phone out anymore.
Now a week into the school year, I don’t think he’s really loving this policy. Ha. He hasn’t said too much, but he’s mentioned that it’s “boring” to not have his phone in certain downtimes that he’s used to having it. I am sure there is almost a sense of withdrawal for these kids!! I mean, I even know that when I forget my phone at home, or when I delete social media or email apps, I definitely feel a little “off” for a while, or I find myself subconsciously reaching for my phone. Sadly, it’s very ingrained in our brains at this point to “check our phones” a lot.
I do definitely think it will be GOOD for them to not have their phones, though. I support these movements to decrease phone use in schools! I don’t think anyone doubts that phones are a real and serious source of distraction. I also think it will be great for the kids to not have phones at lunch- heaven forbid they have to all just, gasp, TALK to each other!
At Asher’s school, I am a little less optimistic. They have also done an overhaul of their cell phone use policy, and are calling it something like, “Bell to Bell, no Cell!”. There, the kids can still have their phones on them, as usual, but they just aren’t supposed to have them out or be on them at ALL during class time. (Which I don’t think is really that different from how it was supposed to be before….).
My understanding is that the main difference this year is a more standardized policy re: enforcement and consequences. (Before, I think there was a lot of variation between the teachers/ classrooms.)
This is why I feel less optimistic, though- I still think this plan places a LOT of burden on the individual teachers to actually follow and enforce the rules, as if high school teachers didn’t already have enough to worry about.
If a student is seen on their phone during class, apparently the teacher will then silently hand a purple card to the student, which means they have to go hand in their phone in the office for the rest of the day. There’s a whole cascading policy of what happens next for repeat offenses, getting the phone back, etc.
I don’t know, maybe I’m being pessimistic, but I can definitely envision some teachers sort of “looking the other way” sometimes, or just being too exhausted to battle with certain kids over the issue… Also, I don’t fully understand how they’ll verify that the kid went to the office. Like does the teacher have to call the office from the classroom to notify that Student X is on the way to turn in a phone? (This seems potentially time consuming/ disruptive.) But otherwise, if the kid is already sort of a blatant rule breaker, what’s to say they won’t just exit the classroom, go for a little walk, pop their phone in their backpack and go back to class? (Maybe I don’t fully understand the implementation- perhaps it involves getting a signature from the office or something?)
It all just seems to put a lot of burden on the teachers, in my opinion, and I sort of highly doubt that certain kids will really adhere to the rules, anyway. Hopefully they will! I do hope this is a success, for everyone’s sake.
At Asher’s school, the kids will be allowed to use their phones in between classes and at lunch. Supposedly all class times and study hall will be off limits (though Asher already said, “There’s no way they’ll enforce it in study halls…it’s a huge room with tons of kids and the monitor teacher just sits there at a desk doing other stuff.” (Study halls are housed in these large “common room” areas at his school, not a standard classroom.)) I guess time will tell, though I’ll probably never really know. 🙂
Hopefully it will at least be an improvement over the previous policies! I know it’s a big challenge for the schools and educators, so I’m grateful that they’re at least trying to face this issue, which is definitely NOT an easy one in today’s world- especially when dealing with teenagers.
Thoughts? Have you seen new phone policies at your kids’ schools?
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for back to school time and all the ‘new school year’ energy. 🙂
GRATEFUL KAE 
That’s really interesting. We nominally have a policy at our primary school but T came home with stories about kids sneaking in smart phones in his class last year (equivalent to US 2nd grade!!). Boggled my mind. The high school’s justification is that they don’t have enough devices for kids to do “research” but bleh…
I’ve been teaching university for 12 years, and remember the noise during breaks in a longer class session. I had a group one year and the person next door would come and complain because it was noisy. They just got on and would chat with their friends, have friendly debates, etc. And now it’s just this deafening silence. They don’t talk to each other, they don’t talk to me, they openly scroll during group work/class discussions. Last year, I had a dude who sat in the lecture theatre idly scrolling my entire lecture. Like just open about it. Attendance isn’t mandatory, why are you wasting your time and mine?
I’m taking a stand this year – we don’t have any enforcement ability but I’m hoping I can employ a bit of social shame with “guys, put your phones away, it’s rude…” but who knows. And then I find myself using my phone more during breaks as well, because it’s awkward to stand there all on my own, while everyone ignores me.
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Restrictions are definitely getting tougher where we live.
L doesn’t have a phone, but LOTS of kids in elementary school do. This year, there are to be no phones used at any time during the day (or on the buses). It used to be allowed at break times, lunch time, and on the bus.
For A at high school, they have a warning system that eventually leads up to the phone being held at the office and parents having to come to the school to get it. I’m not very worried about it because A is quite compliant. This is also her first time having a phone for a full school year, but I think some of the novelty has worn off. Also, she doesn’t have access to the internet or social media on her phone, so aside from a few games, checking her e-mails, and texting, there isn’t much she can do. We shall see how it goes.
We have no plans to get L a cell phone until he’s almost ready for high school so we have years to go!
I can’t imagine being a teacher and having to manage all of this!
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I think phone policies are… fine? I can tell you that college professors are not classroom managers and give zero cares generally if a student is on a phone– it’s your tuition dollars to squander, you know? So part of me thinks kids are better off learning how to self regulate in high school.
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Our school has new policies this year too. NY state is requiring them of all public schools. The governor made a big deal out of it and policies that don’t meet certain criteria can result in lost state funding.
In elementary school no electronic devices of any kind are allowed. In middle school they turn their phones in at the door and pick them up on the way out. The problem with this is that my middle schooler then doesn’t se the point of taking his phone at all which means I can’t text him something I need him to know like “You need to meet your brother at the flagpole after school,” which is THE WHOLE REASON he has a phone. They can get their phone back if they leave campus for lunch which is allowed starting in 7th grade. Most kids use apple pay, etc. if they are buying lunch out so they need their phones for that.
Our high school seems to have a phones that are out in class will be confiscated policy but the consequences aren’t so clear. Oddly enough some policies extend to personal laptops which is weird since kids are allowed to use their personal laptops instead of school issued Chrome books. The weirdest examples is that no phone (totally fine) or personal laptops can be used in the learning commons…but the learning commons is a study space. In 2025 what are you studying without your laptop.
School doesn’t start here until after Labor Day, so we have yet to see exactly how this will all pan out.
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A’s high school has a similar policy as Asher, and I think L’s middle school too? Both of them are rule followers so really are not on their phones much during the day it seems. They also do both get iPads for school and I know that kids find alllllll the ways around the security measures on there to access basically whatever they want. Like you, my kids get good grades and good reports from teachers so whatever. C’s elementary school has been having major issues with kids bringing phones and using them all day and do take a harder stance on not using them (as they should!). He doesn’t have a phone and won’t get one until middle school (which is 7th grade in our district). I know a main thing I’ve heard parents rant about when they talk about these policies is that they want their kids to have a phone if there is a security issue at school or a lockdown/active shooter situation. (I do not agree with that argument, but it’s just the one I’ve heard voiced repeatedly)
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Similar to Erin, I feel like the school-issued devices are easy to get around security measures on, and that kind of drives me crazy. My 7th grader last year was constantly messing around on his school-issued Chromebook and getting in trouble, and he’s highly distractible so I am not surprised that he’s not focusing on whatever they’re supposed to be doing on the Chromebook, but I wish there was a way the school could crack down on that more. My kids don’t have phones yet (6th and 7th grade) but their middle school has a policy that all phones have to remain locked in lockers all day so they can’t use them. My son *says* people generally comply but I’m not totally sure I believe that. Seems like the pouch thing is nice because it takes the compliance monitoring out of the hands of the teachers!
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The high school here has gone to ” no cell, bell to bell”, so students are encouraged to put them in lockers or backpacks. ( And the only backpacks thar are allowed are clear.) The big difference is consistent enforcement- with one rule to follow, it’s much easier for the teachers to enforce this. If a cell phone is out, it gets sent to the office. Two offenses ( I think) the parent has to come to pick up the phone at the end of school. It has reduced tensions in the hallways. And the kids can always mess around on the chrome books ( looking at my hs senior!) But the teacher can move the student to monitor the screen more easily or even just close the computer.
If a parent needs to message the student, they call the office and the message gets relayed. Just like in the olden days!
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I’m so interested in both these policies and how they play out! Ethan’s school seems to be taking quite a strong stance, and it’s interesting that he might be noticing “boredness” now in a way that he didn’t before. Similar to you, I often feel a itchy weird “detox” feeling when I try and cut down on apps / open up space for my brian to wander duing “down time”. It’s interesting to see he’s noticing it as well.
It’s nice that your boys have such a good relationship with tech in general, I imagine it would be much harder to manage if kids were not getting decent grades / having friends / having jobs & hobbies etc. Phones can crowd out the good stuff but you guys have so much good stuff
Curious to see how Asher’s school does with the more nebulous policy. Definitely sounds like another weight on already busy teachers.
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This was such an interesting read, Kae. I have no kids and no contact with teenagers, so it’s valuable insight for me – I actually have no idea what they do at Swiss schools, but now I want to find out.
I agree, Ethan’s Yondr system sounds like the only real way to remove distractions, even if the withdrawal is tough at first. With Asher’s school, I also wonder how consistent enforcement will really be.
Imagine if adults had to hand in their phones at work! Probably necessary sometimes, too.
I’ll be curious to hear how both boys feel once they’ve settled in.
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My husband teaches at a private school, and I know they implemented strict phone policies this year- not sure exactly what it entails, but he was anticipating a lot of pushback (they just started this week- I’ll have to ask him how that’s going!) At my daughter’s (public) school, it seems the teachers all have different policies. Some classes they’re allowed to have their phones, and some teachers have a designated area where all phones have to reside for the entirety of the class. In one of those classes, my daughter told me yesterday that she and her group finished their project early and then sat there talking, “we had to, since we didn’t have our phones” and that it was really fun. SO. It was nice to hear that! I wish there was more of a school-wide policy.
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My 13 year old son’s UK secondary school introduced Yondr pouches it January and it has been highly impactful despite them already having a bell to bell policy previously. It made it so much easier for the teachers and seems to have been understood by the kids.
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I love the no phone policies for my kids’ schools, but they are required in high school to have giant phones aka laptops, so it seems hypocritical. My daughter has an iMac so she gets texts on her computer. I wish they would get rid of all technology and go back to pen and paper. My husband is a high school teacher and ever since they mandated students to bring their own device, it’s been nothing but headaches for the teachers to police.
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