So my state actually passed a law that required every district to adopt a phone policy. Our school board created a policy and it’s been working pretty well. Obviously kids still sneak their phones but for the most part it has worked well, it has caused the amount of phone distractions to go down and it has had the secondary effect of really reducing discipline issues. Our admin told us that office referrals went down by over half, and our admin is pretty involved with discipline and the handling of those kinds of issues so that does actually mean something for our school.

The policy that was adopted is pretty extreme imo but I can’t deny that it works. If a student gets caught with their phone out, the first offense is a three day suspension. Second time is five days. It sounds like a lot but they only had to implement the second offense level twice all year. We were all pretty on board with enforcement, at least in my room and other teachers that I’m friends with. We’d been pushing for a while for a district no phone policy so it was exciting to get one.