After considering recommendations by the district’s Cell Phone Task Force, the Board of Education directed PUSD administrators on March 12 to develop a “phones away except at lunch” policy for PHS students starting in 2025-2026. Piedmont students in TK – eighth grade already operate under what is essentially a bell-to-bell cellphone ban, the district said, so the new policy is aimed primarily at the high schools.
The district said it would develop a specific plan of action for the Board to approve before the end of the school year.
Schools across the state are working to comply with a new California law that requires school districts and charter schools to develop a policy limiting the use of smartphones by July 1, 2026. PHS Principal David Yoshihara, who presented the Task Force findings, said there were reasons beyond complying with the law that made the policy important, namely minimizing distractions from instructional time and reducing exposure to social media.
The Task Force, which included parents and staff representing each school site, spent the last few months researching the topic, conducting site visits and inquiries of nearby districts. They presented the Board with three options to consider around the use of “personal connected devices”:
- Option 1: No PCD’s during instructional time
- Option 2: No PCD’s except at lunch
- Option 3: No PCD’s all day, bell-to-bell
(PCDs include, but are not limited to, cell phones, tablets, watches, glasses, and headphones/earbuds, according to the district.)
Some Board members said they were interested in ultimately moving to a “bell to bell” all-day ban after a transitional period. “I am not in favor of cellphones in school,” said Trustee Max Roman. “There is research that shows that [no cellphones] is beneficial to grades.”
Trustee Susy Struble said she also favored a maximalist approach, but said the district would likely need to invest in a centralized storage solution like lockers to achieve the goal of a phone-free campus.
Many teachers at the high school currently ask students to park their phones in a variety of “phone hotels” in the classrooms before class and students are allowed to retrieve their phones when class is over.
Parents and students not aligned
Student speakers and student representatives to the Board focused on the logistical challenges a ban would impose, especially around enforcement. “If we expand the ban into lunchtime, students will find ways to get around this rule — it will take a lot more resources to enforce” said PHS senior Alex Gish who cited the myriad ways students already work around classroom restrictions.
A lack of things to do on the high school campus relative to the middle school campus drives excessive cellphone use, said PHS senior Dylan Hickman. Plus, he said “we also can’t just go to the office in a lockdown situation,” advocating for a less restrictive cellphone ban.
PHS student school board representative Mira Sachs said that a student newspaper survey found that students don’t believe phone use at the high school is as problematic as adults imagine. MHS student representative Grace Rego inquired about enforcement and consequences — a topic that the district said it would have to figure out.
The parents who spoke Wednesday night held other views. “Be bold and nimble,” parent Sarah Bell told the Board, advocating for a complete ban on cellphones at high school.
“Even the presence of a cellphone … somewhere accessible to you is a distraction… people underestimate how much that sort of multi-tasking throws them off focus,” said parent Amanda Straub, a co-founder of Piedmont Unplugged, a local parent group that advocates for fully phone-free schools among other less-is-more tech practices.
In an email to the high school community after the meeting, Yoshihara said the school will provide more information about the change as it worked to develop new guidelines before the beginning of the new school year.