Strengthening phone policies has become a growing trend in high schools across Virginia.
The 2024-2025 school year has seen a dramatic increase of its cell phone policy. During the 2023-2024 year, the policy was simply to keep phones away in bags. This year, high schoolers must place their phones in designated cubbies, or ‘cell phone caddies’, in front of the class each period. Middle schoolers must keep their phone locked away in “Yondr pouch” bags for the entirety of the school day, and they can only be unlocked at several stations open at the end of the day.
Just as the measures to ensure phones are kept away have strengthened, the consequences for defying these rules have intensified as well, with policies going from receiving warnings for cell phone use during class, to phones being taken away and returned at the end of the day upon the first offense. By the third offense, students must turn in their cell phones to their subschool office and cannot receive them again until the end of the day for 20 consecutive school days.
An executive order issued by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also pushes to take the restrictions even further. Executive Order 33, announced on July 9, will “take immediate actions to protect the health and safety of students in Virginia’s K-12 public schools by issuing guidance on the establishment of cell phone-free educational policies and procedures.”
Are these rules too much? How have these policies impacted the lives of students at Robinson – has it changed them for the better, or for the worse?
What is “Cell Phone-Free Education?”
According to the Virginia Department of Education’s (VDOE) guidelines, cell phone-free education constitutes the absence of cell-phones during instructional periods of the school. Pretty simple. The guideline defines students’ instructional time as “bell-to-bell”, or from the beginning of the school day until the end. While it does go on to list differences in application for different grades, the policy takes an equality-over-equity approach to device restriction. The essential rule stands for elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, and high schoolers alike: “[They] shall not have a cell phone or personal electronic communication device during the bell-to-bell school day.”
However, is the VDOE’s equality-over-equity “too much?” According to the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of public high school teachers believe cell phone usage is a major problem in their classrooms, compared to 33 percent of middle school teachers and 6 percent of elementary school teachers. Yet, all schools, regardless of how big of an issue cell phone usage is, have to comply with “cell-phone free education.” Furthermore, there are many classes where teachers report cell phones not being a major problem. According to photography teacher Carrie Garvey, “My students, in general, were pretty respectful about not using their phones when people were talking to them or when they’re being addressed- but when they had down time, I think it was their go-to thing to do [go on their phones] and they probably didn’t use their time as wisely when they had more access to their phone.”
Cell phones and Zero-Tolerance Policies
The consequences associated with being seen with a cell phone are severe at Robinson. Even when a student isn’t actively using their phone, if they are seen with a cell phone, they’re at risk of facing potentially severe consequences. For the first violation of the policy, cell phones are confiscated and held until the end of class and parents are notified. This violation is logged in Student Information Services, better known as SIS,and the student receives a warning. For the second violation, the phone is given to the subschool or the front office and the phone is only able to be picked up after the end of the school day; parents are notified about the violation. The violation is also recorded into SIS and the student receives detention. For the third violation, the phone is given to the front office or subschool and parents have to pick up the device. Detention is given and a parent-teacher conference is held, and the violation is recorded into SIS. For subsequent violations, it’s the same as the third violation, with the notable exception that the student must bring their phone into the front office every day for 20 days. The violation is also logged into SIS.
FCPS and other school districts have long used zero-tolerance policies in their punishments. According to the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), zero-tolerance policies often ignore common sense and ignore the context of a given situation. Robinson’s cell phone policies are similar, in that they punish students for having their cell-phone on hand, regardless if they were using it or not. A student could potentially forget that they had their cell phone in their hand during passing between Advisory and Raise and have their phone taken.
Some teachers like the existence of consequences, but may think they’re too harsh. According to an anonymous teacher, “I think it’s good that there are actual consequences. I do wish perhaps it wasn’t on a referral level- when we go into the system we log it as a major incident, which to me seems very serious, like a suspension worthy consequence.” However, 7th grade US History teacher Lesley Minai said, “I feel like [the consequences] are helpful for us as teachers because they’re pretty clearcut: if they do this first offense, second offense, third offense. We don’t have to guess about it and it’s taking the work off of us as teachers and when the whole school is following the same policy, it makes things easier for us.”
Yet, despite zero-tolerance policies, students still use their phones. Minai said, “There’s kids that are getting around it; they’re breaking their pouches, they’re putting things in there they shouldn’t and then pretending that’s their phone.” Despite this, however, Minai said, “But our administration has started doing these ‘sweeps’ where they’re coming around and just like doing a phone check. So hopefully, between that and then kids just making the good choices to do the right thing, I have no problem with the pouches. I was actually very excited to have them.”
Why did Virginia implement the cell-phone policy?
School districts all across Virginia, including FCPS, have to conform to Youngkin’s Executive Order, according to Northern Virginia Magazine. Youngkin points to the mental health of students as a key reason the executive order was enacted, as well as their academic record.. In the executive order, he also focuses on parents, stating that “cell phone-free education will significantly reduce the amount of time students can be on phones without parental supervision.” He cites that 60 percent of teenagers that use social media at a high frequency report having weak parental relationships, a finding in an article by the American Psychological Association.
Previously, Youngkin has been campaigning to increase parental involvement in the lives of students at school, as seen in his model policies in 2022 and 2023. Oftentimes, these policies come at the expense of student liberties; in the model policies, students who wanted to use a different name or pronouns weren’t able to unless it was put in writing, which required parental permission. While Youngkin also cites the effects cell phone usage has on the mental health of students, it’s possible that the ban was also politically motivated for the same aims of increasing parental involvement in the lives of their children.
The Republican National Committee, a committee that represents the Republican party, has also supported Yondr, with a $23,750 payment to the company in February of 2023 for “software/licensing” purposes, according to opensecrets. Given Youngkin’s and Foundation’s aims to restrict cell phone usage in schools, Yondr benefits financially from the aims of such groups, as sales for the company spiked into the millions from revenue derived from government contracts, according to The74. While no financial contributions to Yondr have been observed by any other parties, according to a survey conducted by the Washington Post-Schar School, 69 percent of a random sample of 1005 registered voters who were parents with school aged children agreed with the cell phone ban, implying some degree of bipartisan agreement.
Furthermore, the civil liberties of students are taken away when their phones are out of their hands. In October of 2015, at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina, a student was able to record and upload a video showing a white police officer, Ben Fields, assaulting a black, female student for not complying to put her phone away. According to the New York Times, the video went viral, allowing millions of people to witness the incident and, furthermore, sparking a conversation about police brutality against Black Americans.
The removal of phones arguably limits the civil liberties of students at school. While it is unlikely that anything potentially dangerous or unjust would happen at Robinson, how can students keep their schools accountable when they fail them? How can students record incidents of injustice, big or small, when they don’t have a device to record it with? In the assault case, it is unlikely that the case would’ve gone viral if there wasn’t video evidence of the event.
Schools have punished students in the past for recording and uploading videos that may damage their reputation. In the midst of the pandemic in Georgia, according to ABC News, student Hannah Watters was suspended for sharing a photo of her hallway, packed with students without their masks. On the same day, the school warned students that they would face consequences if they distributed imagery that negatively impacted their school’s reputation. Cell phone-free education benefits authoritative administrations who wish to avoid accountability, but how can students keep their administration accountable when they can’t record evidence of their mishaps?
According to an interview of Yondr founder and CEO Graham Dugoni by Alice Gregory on Wired, the company was founded after Dugoni witnessed a drunk man being recorded by a pair of strangers. After the incident, Dugoni desired to create a “phone-free space” to prevent the recording of strangers by strangers, claiming that such spaces “provides the foundation for sustained attention, dialog, and freedom of expression.” Yet, does Dugoni’s product actually limit the freedom of expression? While Dugoni’s product may protect against the invasion of privacy, Yondr limits free speech as it ensures that people, be they concertgoers, court attendees, or students, can’t hold authorities accountable by taking away their cameras.
The Effectiveness of the Phone Policy
While the phone policy may have some negative effects, the policy has seen positive effects on social relationships at school. According to an anonymous teacher, “I’ve been seeing students fostering quicker and stronger relationships, especially when there’s dead time in class. Instead of pulling out their phones, we’re discussing- whether it’s related to [school] content or not- after work is finished.” This also seems to be the case for middle schoolers, as an anonymous eighth grader said, “There’s definitely been a lot of more communication with my friends during lunch. Since we’re not on our phones, I think it’s been better at lunch.”
Productivity in the classroom has also increased, as according to an anonymous teacher, “We’re able to progress at a quicker pace with content.” However, the phone policy has come into conflict with curriculums, as Garvey said, “The one thing that has been an adjustment is we used to use our phones in instruction a lot. I’ve had to be a little creative about how to do workarounds for that.”
In some classes, students have found alternatives to phone usage. Minai said, “What they are starting to do now is more and more video games on their computers, so I’ve kind of moved away from using the computers a lot in class and with the computers away and the phones in their pouches, I’m finding that the students are more engaged and more focused, but it’s still taking a lot of effort on my part to manage the technology piece of things.”
Middle schoolers have also benefited from the phone policy, yet according to Garvey, “The middle schoolers often accidentally lock their pouches without their phones on them, so there’s an adjustment period of having to send them to get their pouches unlocked, but I feel like that’s improving the more they get used to the system.”
Senior Sam Heatherington shared that the current policy undertaken by FCPS has taken some getting used to, but has ultimately been effective. “I want to think that I don’t like it because I just love my phone like everybody else, so I’m inclined to not like it… but I’m seeing that it’s slowly becoming more routine not to have [my phone] and just do work.” said Heatherington.
However, Heatherington adds that taking this policy any further would be unreasonable. “That’s where I draw the line. I find it kind of unfair. Yes, phone [restrictions] are good and beneficial in an educational environment where you’re actually trying to learn and get work done. [But] In between bells, you’re walking to class, and during lunch, you should be able to use your phone then.” said Heatherington. While removing phones entirely from the school environment may improve student retention to information learned in class, phones serve more purposes than just acting as distractions. They are used for students to communicate with parents and friends during non-instructional periods, and can even serve as tools for facilitating in-class activities and lessons. “In the end, it should really be left up to the discretion of the teachers,” said Heatherington. “If the teacher thinks that it’s ok for students to have phones, then that should be the case.”
Despite serious implications with the phone policy, it remains a popular policy among teachers and to some extent among students. According to Minai, “I hope they keep it, honestly. I hope that it stays because I think that students are just so distracted and it’s really become a challenge for us as teachers to try to engage students who have so many other options to what they can be doing with their time.”
From a Journalistic Perspective
As journalists, our cell phones are critical tools for what we do in and out of the classroom. We use our cell phones to jot down notes or questions, reach out to students and teachers, record and transcribe our interviews- and the list goes on. While the coming VDOE policy to indiscriminately and entirely ban the usage of cellphones may prove beneficial to student’s education, we worry it will result in a sacrifice of the integrity and efficiency of the journalism program. Our hope is that FCPS will find a middle ground which can both accommodate a healthy academic environment and a healthy journalistic one.