When the school year began, a new school phone rule was put into place but it resulted in mixed feedback.
The phone policy now requires students to put their devices into a classroom phone pocket or their book bag during class.
Junior Ashton Tollison said that the policy is effective at times but is flawed.
“I think it’s effective, but not in the way they want it to be,” Tollison said. “I think it’s effective in keeping them off their phones during class time. But then there’s the times where we need it to check for a text, and even then teachers do not stop them at times.”
Junior Iris George said Chromebooks are just as problematic as the phones are.
“If they’re banning phones, they need to also get rid of laptops,” George said. “Because you can’t take away phones if they are doing the same thing to kids, and it’s still a distraction.”
English teacher Alyssa Waldron said the phone policy is still effective for student’s education and health.
“I think we correctly prioritized student education over student happiness,” Waldron said. “We as a building decided that the phones were too much of a distraction, not only in terms of just students not talking to one another, but distracted from their education.”
Waldron said she doesn’t agree with every aspect of the policy.
“I think there should be some leniency in terms of teachers should get to decide when students use it,” Waldron said. “That’s the balance of trying to decide when it’s right. And to me, it’s only right if you have zero missing assignments across the board, if you have good grades and you’re in good behavior as well.”
Waldron also said teachers are also at fault for not enforcing it enough.
“I would like more teachers to do it better or strict enforcement of it,” Waldron said. “The thing is that some of us have to be the bad guys, because we are more strict. I think it should be like that across the board.”
Junior Eliana Williams said the rule has helped her learning opportunities in ELO.
“Not being able to have it during things like ELO, has helped get me to actually do work and use ELO time like it’s supposed to be used for,” Williams said. “I personally don’t think it has been awful. To me it still feels like a normal policy.”
Sophomore Izaya Jackson said students will bypass any phone rule no matter what.
“Everybody just puts their phone in their bag or their pocket, they don’t take it seriously,” Jackson said. “The policy as a whole is stupid. I feel as if it’s not working, so I don’t see that there’s a reason to have it continue.”
