I can almost guarantee that basically nobody likes the new phone policy that both the state and NHS implemented for this year. It seems pointless. But is it actually?
A bit of context
According to New York State, phones were too big of a distraction, and thus, a bill was passed banning the use of cell phones in schools statewide. NHS in specific decided to go the route of requiring them to be put in lockers.
So, why is it less effective?
The issue with this is that we are 9 days into school and people are already going to extreme lengths just to not put their phones in their locker. So, is there even a point of the policy when its effectiveness is the same, if not worse than going the route of phone pouches? Well, there could be.
The pros
One supposed benefit of keeping phones in lockers is that it will help students properly focus and pay attention in class. Another benefit is that it helps students differentiate their personal and school lives in a more straightforward and potentially better way.
The cons
I could write a whole laundry list here. Am I biased? Partially. But I’ve also firsthand seen that maybe 1 out of every 10 people actually puts their phone in their lockers. And it’s only September. One of the major cons is that people are going to find a way around any sort of prevention method. Another issue arises when it comes to times when phones are actually needed. For example, in photography classes, uploading photos from cell phones to the computers is sometimes necessary to edit them. The problem with this is that phones are supposed to be in lockers throughout the full school day. There is technically an exemption for this in the school’s policy, but the fact that ifs and buts are required for the policy to work makes it much less straightforward and easy to moderate than expected.
Is there a better alternative?
In my opinion, yes. I think the phone pouch method was effective, and if it was used as intended more by teachers it could have worked just fine. Yet, the state decided that leaving the decision of phone bans up to school districts was too risky to do. And so here we are.
