Is the phone policy taking away the last little bit of students’ freedom? 

This year, the administration made a big change: no phones in school. To begin with, the administration took the wrong direction with the phone policy. As soon as students walk into the building, they have to put their phones in the box, where they are kept “safe.” However, if those phones were damaged or stolen, the school isn’t responsible. 

This has students ignoring the policy and keeping their phones either on their person or in their backpacks. The school needs to realize that this ban isn’t the perfect solution and that removing phones entirely was not the smartest move in an increasingly tech-heavy world. 

To be fair, one good result so far is that compared to the first semester of last school year, grades have increased. In the 2024-25 school year, the average for A’s was 42% and 13% of students were failing. Now, for the start of the 2025-26 school year 53% of students have A’s, and only 11% are failing. Those numbers are encouraging, but I wonder if it would’ve been different if the school district would’ve taken a different direction.  

Instead of a total ban, the school could have implemented a smarter plan. For example, they could have students put their phones in phone pockets of the class they are in. This truly could have been a monumental shift from the extreme approach and it should’ve been at least attempted before taking them away completely. There is no reason that as students we aren’t allowed to have our phones during passing time and lunch. The compromise should have been to allow students to have access to their phones during lunch or passing time. This all could’ve been way different if teachers got students in trouble for not listening to them and being on their phones during a lesson. Many teachers would say that they tried and told students there would be consequences if they disobeyed and continued to be on their phones. Though when it truly came down to it they didn’t. Their issue with the phones was when a student would be on their phone during class they wouldn’t want to interrupt their lesson and didn’t want to be the one to continuously send students to the office and get them in trouble. I understand that teachers wanted to cut down on distractions, but taking away the phones was not the right answer. 

Supporters of the ban say it encourages more student interaction. It’s true that more students do interact with each other, but not everyone does and this shouldn’t have been the approach. Now, I usually don’t have a problem with going on my phone. I was usually the type that would go on my phone when I finished all of my work and the teachers gave me the ok. Yes, phones can be distracting, but they also help students stay connected, document memories, and feel informed. 

Without their phone buzzing some students are more focused, but others feel isolated. The administration argues that the policy has reduced cheating, but have they considered how the students are feeling?

Now the big question is: Will this ban stick? The short answer is no, it won’t. Last year, as a whole school year, there were only 37 phone referrals handed out. Now, not even fully into the first quarter of the school, there have been 23. We have more than half what we did last year and it’s only the start of the year. Though this does make sense considering lots of students didn’t take the staff seriously and believe that if they have their electronics there will be consequences, and this suggests that students aren’t taking the policy seriously and the problem isn’t going away.

Now, as a junior who has had his phone since he was a seventh grader, this phone ban hit hard. It was so weird to not have my phone with me any more. I can’t take pictures with my friends in class which is horrible because since I’m almost done with school all these memories of my last two years will fade away. This is hard to deal with knowing that I’m almost done and there will be nothing to show for the last part of my high school journey. 

Finally, I asked the principal of our school Jeff Trapp to shed his light and his opinion on the phone ban, and he said, “I will say that we are very proud of our student and staff response with implementing the cell phone free policy this year.  It has really gone better than we expected and a big part of that is the students’ responsibility with the process.  Our main goals were to reduce distractions in the classroom and increase interactions throughout the rest of the school.  We do feel this has been successful and we will continue on this track as we make progress.” 

Trapp talked about the “students responsibility with this process,” but the data shows that we are on track to have almost double the amount of student referrals for the 2025-26 school year compared to last year. While I understand his point, it is clear that students aren’t taking this ban to heart. Most of us respect the staff and understand their viewpoints, but we disagree with the policy as a whole.and disrespecting the staff because they took away the phones. 

In the end, the phone ban may have good intentions, but it treats students like they can’t manage responsibility. If the goal is to prepare us, shouldn’t we be trusted to balance technology use?