This year, Oxford School District, along with other districts around the nation, introduced a new phone policy in which students are required to lock their devices up in each class. While this seems to eliminate distractions from classrooms, it hurts students in the long term. The policy demonstrates that administrators do not trust students, inhibits students from learning responsibility, overlooks the many ways students use their phones and causes unnecessary stress for students and parents.
This new policy shows that the adults in the school district do not have faith that the students can use their phones in school responsibly. While some may struggle to stay off their devices, the policy makes a generalization that all students cannot make mature choices when it comes to distractions in the classroom. This creates resentment in students and leads them to feel like they are being treated unfairly. High school students do not want to be treated like children who cannot control themselves. Letting students keep their phones and trusting them to act responsibly with their technology creates an environment of mutual respect. Students would want to respect their teachers by staying off of their devices while in class if they feel they are also respected by their teachers. This policy does not allow for such an environment to exist.
Locking up phones also does not prepare students for the future. Simply taking devices away from students may remove distractions, but it does not let students learn responsibility. In college or in the workplace, devices are not going to be taken away from students. They will have to learn how to handle distractions themselves. Taking them away from students in high school does not allow them to learn this lesson in advance. This will become a struggle for students later when they will not have someone else to remove distractions for them. Instead of locking up students’ phones, the district should create rules that allow students to keep their phones and learn the self-discipline to stay off of them now rather than in the future. Students may follow
this restriction while they are at school, but it does not properly prepare them for after they graduate.
There are also other concerns when students do not have access to their devices. Having their devices provides comfort for students. Devices make students feel safe as they always have access to the outside world. In case of an emergency, not having access to their device can cause excessive stress in students. Students need a way to contact their parents and loved ones to let them know they are safe. Emergencies occur quickly, and having phones locked away may not give students the ability to contact their family if something happens. This can create stress in students’ families as well.
This policy also does not acknowledge the other ways students may use phones in productive ways. While phones can be distracting, they are not only used for social media. Phones can hold a student’s calendar or due dates for schoolwork. Locking up students’ devices restricts their access to these resources that can help them be productive in school. Phones are also sometimes needed in classrooms, and teachers sometimes need them for parts of a lesson. This cannot occur when they are locked away. This policy does not allow for positive uses of technology.
On the other hand, the policy does effectively eliminate distractions that stem from devices. Phones are extremely prevalent currently in the world. Students have had access to the internet all their lives, leading them to become too attached to their devices. Attention spans have become shorter because of the access to fast media such as TikTok or Instagram Reels. Students also often get caught up in notifications, leading them to sneak peaks at their phones during lessons. Eliminating phones does get rid of this problem, but it is too extreme of a solution.
OSD should explore different solutions to this issue that find more of a happy medium. There are ways to set clear boundaries for phones without completely removing them. This would allow teachers to incorporate devices into learning in some ways if they wanted. Teachers also have the ability to take phones if necessary from a certain student when it is becoming too distracting. Phones could be regulated at a classroom level with teachers collecting them when needed – like during testing – and allowing students to keep them when not needed. This creates a better learning
environment based on mutual respect, trust and self-discipline. A different pol-
icy would allow students to learn skills such as personal responsibility they cannot currently learn with the most recent phone policy.
Overall the new phone policy is too broad of a solution for a complex problem involving technology in the current age. It ignores how integral phones are in modern society (especially for teenagers), does not allow students to learn personal responsibility and shows students they are not trusted by adults. OSD should reconsider their approach to this issue and create a better solution that properly prepares students for the future.
