Is the Phone Policy Actually Helping Students?

Beginning this school year, Gloucester High School has implemented one of its most impactful policies: no phones allowed to be used in classrooms. In September, the roll-out was a highly controversial part of the new school year, with just as much criticism as support.

It seems as though not having their phones on them for forty-five minutes at a time is too hard. I was speaking to a fellow student whom I work with about the policy back in November, and he expressed how he was very miserable since the phone policy went into effect, and is also less focused without his phone.

Personally, I have been very open-minded to the idea of keeping our phones away for class time. I believe social media is addictive and unhealthy to students; the word “brain rot” was not chosen as Oxford’s 2024 word of the year for nothing. I believe social media is a rabbit hole of stupidity that keeps kids hooked on scrolling through useless videos for sometimes hours on end.

Regardless of what I believe, I asked some of the teachers what they’ve experienced in their classrooms since the policy went into effect.

“Engagement has gone up significantly, and assessment performance has also gone up,” Mrs. Goulart, the health teacher told me. “Most of the students adhere to the rules, and actually feel a bit relieved themselves that they don’t have that constant pressure to be looking at their phones.”

I also asked the career development teacher Mrs. D’Oliveira about how her students respond to the phone policy.

“Personally in my classroom, I didn’t really have a problem with kids being on their phone [before the policy] because what I always did, before I started class, was to say ‘Check your messages, if you need to send a message do it now, then put your phone away.’”

I also asked Mrs. D’Oliveira if she thought the school should keep the phone policy for years to come.

“I think it depends on technology and what kind of accessibility the students are gonna need with their phones, ” said D’Oliveria. “Sometimes you actually need your phone to grab a file or have a photograph of a chapter and it is more convenient than a laptop.I think we have to adapt to the changes of technology.”