Phones have become a major part of almost every student’s life, but the extent of which they should be used on school grounds is debated. In junior high, the phone policy consists of putting phones in a designated place in first period classes and getting it back at the end of the day. The senior high phone policy, when compared to the junior high phone policy, is noticeably different as students are allowed to use their phone during the day but required to put it up during classes. However the differences between the junior high and senior high phone policies weren’t always here. 

The junior high phone policy used to be the same as the senior high. The faculty allowed this in hope of teaching the junior high students how to responsibly manage their phones. “We had too many kids who were using them inappropriately during lunches and between classes, and then when you walked down the hallways, every junior high student practically had their face in their phone,” head of junior High Melissa Euziere said.“They weren’t doing anything or interacting with each other.” 

The phone policy was enacted halfway through the 2023-2024 school year. Angelica Norris, a current sophomore, was in eighth grade at the time the phone policy was established. “I remember everyone was really irritated and frustrated but they calmed us down by saying it would just last for two weeks” Norris noted. Almost instantly after it was executed, faculty noticed an improvement in students’ behavior during class. “Classroom disruptions went down  because you’re not going to have to deal with the phone or whether or not you put it in the phone pocket every class period,” said Euziere. “Even in the hallways kids are talking to each other there, interacting with each other which before they did but very little.” 

Melissa Sleeper, the seventh grade life science teacher, said that she previously worked at schools with no phone policies. With the phones not being available to students, there’s no incentive to skip class. “Kids would go to the restrooms for twenty minutes or more and that’s a lot of class because they would go in with their phones,” Sleeper said. “I do think it helps them interact with each other more because they don’t have the phone to go check on Snapchat or whatever they are using.”   

 But not everyone sees the phone policy the same way. “Junior high is always so rowdy in my personal opinion. It got even more rowdy without our phones,” Norris said. She offered her unique perspective on how effective the phone policy was as a student. “If I’m going to be honest, I think the phone policy made everyone more sneaky and did not positively affect behavior.”  “I thought the phone policy was ineffective, irritating, and absurd,” Norris said. “It was really annoying to not be able to text your parents or friends or family during the day because the phone policy didn’t make junior high, which is already hectic, any better.” 

This view is not a secret to the faculty. “Given the choice they wouldn’t choose that (the phone policy),” Euziere said, “They’d chose their phones, which I understand, so I get that it’s not a favorable thing for them. But, it’s a good learning experience to learn how to be without the phones for a day.” 

According to the Institute of Education Science, half of public school leaders feel that students’ academic performance is impacted by cell phones, and two thirds of them feel as if cell phones have a negative effect on the students’ mental health and attention span. While it may not be the favorable option among students, faculty argue the cell phone policy brings out the best in students. “Personal interaction is one of the most important things to learn in junior high because it’s such a delicate age when everyone’s figuring it out and if you have to the ability to just tuck yourself into a phone and lose yourself like that then you lose the opportunity to kind of you know learn to talk to other people and it just allowed for a little more focus and less distractions” Euziere remarked.