This editorial was published in The Piedmont Highlander student newspaper on Sept. 12
As states and schools across the country enact new campus-wide phone bans, it becomes increasingly apparent that the trend is hurtling toward Piedmont. As literature on adolescent phone use entered the mainstream, many parents of Piedmont students voiced their concerns about phone usage. As a result, the Board of Education has asked Superintendent Jennifer Hawn to assess the level of phone use on campus and report her findings at two meetings. At the first meeting on September 18, Hawn will discuss her opinion on the effectiveness of the current system, where phones are allowed during breaks but stored in “phone hotels” during class time. Now, as a potential restricted phone plan develops, the district sits at a critical juncture; it may impose a district-wide, all-encompassing phone ban, a continuation of the status quo, or a graduated policy focusing separately on school levels. The TPH editorial board recommends that the Board of Education opt for the graduated policy.
The Board of Education may maintain the phone-ban status quo; banned use on campus at the elementary and middle school levels with restrictions on high school students in place only during class hours. However, if Hawn finds phone use to be a significant detriment to learning and mental health, or if the Board of Education decides to disregard her assessment, Piedmont could be looking at a future total ban of phone use on campus.
Students, especially underclassmen, should be aware of this decision. The previously dormant “closed campus during brunch” rule was quietly returned to enforcement over the summer. In the same manner but with greater consequences, a phone ban could be quietly passed over a summer break or during a school board meeting, without student input.
A phone ban could take various forms. For example, Yondr is a company that makes lockable phone pouches that open after exiting a designated “phone-free area” according to the company’s website. According to the Oregon-based newspaper The Daily Tidings, Medford, Oregon’s school district implemented the product to critical reactions from some community members. According to the LA Times, the Los Angeles school district board considered a campus-wide, all-encompassing ban, including breaks and lunch.
Neither of these options seems appropriate for Piedmont.
The Yondr pouches, or similar products, present methods that seem too restrictive and vulnerable to misuse at worst, and at best make for an expensive version of the existing policy. Lockable pouches typically cost between $25 and $30 dollars per student. The pouches lock phones during class time but allow use during passing periods and breaks, which is exactly what the current policy of phone hotels at Piedmont does. The phone hotels are effective at keeping students focused during class time without incurring too much on personal property or straining the budget.
Alternatively, a campus-wide ban would be either impossible to implement or harmful to students. Because of Piedmont’s open campus, a phone ban that allows students to keep possession of their phones would be easily disregarded by simply walking off campus. Meanwhile, collecting phones at the start of school and returning them at the end, in addition to being logistically mind-bending, would cut off access to the world for students who need it. Many students rely on their phones during the school day to contact family members, and students with jobs or other extracurricular responsibilities often use their phones to coordinate with managers and co-workers. This could disproportionately impact athletes, students who live outside of walking range and don’t drive, and students with jobs.
Beyond the mechanics of imposing such a ban, the long-term impacts of such a ruling could be deep. Phones and other online tools are here to stay. Every student learning today will work in a time when phones are necessary and unavoidable. Because part of the purpose of school is to prepare young people for adult life, instead of rejecting a permanent addition to the working landscape based on its previous misuse, schools should work to educate students on healthy phone use.
High school students need to be equipped with the tools to handle their phones because after high school, there will be no training wheels. Unrestricted post-graduates, used to external structures guiding their behavior, will be more susceptible to misuse. To that end, schools must help students grow their own internal structures of habit to create more resilient, happy, and productive people. A phone ban is a knee-jerk response to eliminate a possible obstacle to education, but that approach is reactionary and fails to radically address the issue.
If parents and educators have complaints about unhealthy habits, those complaints should be reflected in the curriculum. The obvious place for that addition is the sophomore year Health Science class. However, we feel that a unit in one class alone would be insufficient. Healthy habits of phone use should be taught throughout school, particularly in middle school when students are most receptive to habit coaching. The middle school should have assemblies and workshops periodically to encourage students to learn under their own willpower. At the high school level, those assemblies could change into student-led discussions on phone use, and how they want to address it. By high school, students need to learn how to work without top-down structures. Resilience comes from the bottom-up, and administrators should respect and encourage it.
