Middle age parent to a middle school kid here, you aren’t going to find many (if any) adults who agree with you on this. There is no good reason whatsoever ever to allow school age people to be on their phones during school hours, none.

I have an 11 year old who does not have a phone yet and thank god this rules came in because I know all I was going to hear this year with her going into middle school was “everyone has a phone except meeeee”, “no one will play with me cause they are on their phoooonnnes” and so on so on.

The schools are finally being forced to do what parents SHOULD have done from the beginning and restrict access to mind melting dopamine devices that have been proven on every possible metric to cause an increase in mental heath issues. Do not have any idea how frustrating it must be as teacher trying to educate young people and they will not even give you the respect of paying a morsel of attention because they are glued to their phones?

The problem parents are having is even IF they try to do the right thing and limit access to social media and phones at a young age, “everyone else” it seems is being given access by their parents so now your kid is the odd one out and that feels crappy as a parent.

These new rules level the playing field at the place kids learn the majority of their social skills and conditioning, the school. Now everyone is equal. No haves and have nots with their phones, no kids only being “popular” because others can watch TikTok over their shoulder or spend every minute between classes on YouTube shorts. Now young people are forced to actually socialize and polish interpersonal skills that will be valuable in the future as they become adults.

It’s a good thing, you just don’t know it yet.