At Orono High School, students have become familiar with the implementation of phone pockets, an addition to the phone policy that addresses what the administration sees as a growing challenge.
It is not just Orono viewing phones as detrimental to learning. The State of Minnesota passed legislation that “A school district or charter school must adopt a policy on students' possession and use of cell phones in school by March 15, 2025,” in the 2024 Minnesota State Session.
Why Phones?
The official phone policy is that students are not allowed to use their phones during instructional hours. On the surface, it may seem puzzling. In school, laptops are just as accessible to students and have similar capabilities to phones. Plus, many laptops offer cellular capabilities, allowing students to bypass restrictions with the school wifi. This makes it difficult to determine what makes phones more distracting in a classroom setting.
The administration argues that the phone policy is about more than just classroom focus. It is an attempt to help students build healthier long-term habits around technology use.
The Purpose of the Phone Policy
According to Dr. Amy Steiner, the phone policy serves a dual purpose: to remove distractions in the classroom and prepare students for life beyond high school.
“[The phone policy] is good for our mental health. It’s not only about school and learning. It’s just about us finding a balance in life as well,” Steiner said.
Phones are not uniquely distracting, however, given how they fit into students’ daily routines
“I think phones, just because they are smaller and more portable, are easy to have with us all the time, as opposed to a laptop,” Steiner said.
Results of the Phone Pocket Addition
Since the introduction of the phone pockets, Dr. Steiner has seen beneficial results.
“I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from students and staff that it has helped [students] concentrate. It’s helped them in class discussions, and the classroom behavior in general is much more academic.”.
On the other hand, many students disagree with the need for phone pockets, including junior Nick Lang.
“I don’t agree with the phone policy…students are responsible enough to not take their phone out during class.”
Students who are distracted by their phones can easily just shift that behavior to their laptops. And students have found other loopholes, including placing a burner phone or a calculator in a phone pocket while keeping their primary ones.
And in an attempt to eliminate a primary distraction, students have lost the ability to do some necessary things. For example, they may need to contact their parents/guardians about something urgent. In which case they are expected to be able to do that from their laptop, a device which students often do not have the ability to do so from.
Are The Challenges Solvable?
At this point, there is no perfect solution. To perfectly accomplish the administration’s goals, strict enforcement and complete separation of educational material to laptops and distractions to phones would be necessary. This distinction exists for the most part, but not entirely.
The phone pockets are a schoolwide solution that comes at the cost of responsible phone usage during class hours. But it is designed to eliminate the need for constant teacher enforcement.
“I don’t want teachers to spend their time policing the phones, which is why we have the pockets,” Dr. Steiner said.
Despite the limitations, the school still believes that the addition of the phone pockets minimizes a significant source of interruption in the classroom.
For now, the policy is here to stay. Dr. Steiner does not anticipate any changes and believes that the policy we have right now is working.
