Although the New York state-wide ban on phone usage in schools has been in place for almost 10 months, students and staff continue to grapple with whether it is actually effective, and they have a wide range of different opinions on the topic.
High school special education teacher Bryan O’Gorman is of the opinion that the phone ban has worked. “The phone ban has done a good job making most kids present,” O’Gorman said.
Social studies teacher Brian Ogden had his doubts about this new system from the beginning, but now his mind is changed. At first he wasn’t sure if the administration, teachers, and students could collectively make the new rules work. But he now sees a positive change in student behavior and the amount of work getting done. Ogden said, “I am thankful I was wrong and this ban is more effective than I believed it was going to be.” He added that no longer having to worry about the phones takes him back to the days before phones were popular in school.
However, many students are not as enthusiastic about the ban’s effectiveness. Junior Maksum Shevchyk said, “The phone ban stopped kids from being on phones all the time but made students more restless to find more ways to sneak them in class.”
The ban’s implementation is a point of contention for many. Junior Henry Foley-Hedlund commented, “The issue is that it requires a lot of trust.” While previously teachers could see and control students’ phones in the “phone pockets” in each classroom, phones are now out of sight in backpacks and cases, which opens the door for less regulation and more students breaking the rules.
The ban has not stopped students from sneakily using phones in bathrooms or using them to cheat in the backs of classrooms. Freshman Maryam Alzaghir said, “Although the rules are more strict now, still nobody follows it.”
But students are not always as sneaky as they think. Teachers often catch them on their phones, which results in their phone being sent to the main office for their parents or guardians to retrieve. Junior Rhys Williams has his doubts about this system. “When people are caught with their phone it causes more trouble for parents when they have to come get it,” Williams said. Parents don’t always have the ability to retrieve their child’s phone after it has been confiscated, so some believe it is an unfair system of punishment.
Most Haldane students want to go back to the pocket system. Sophomore Shay Hanna said that she believes that the previous pocket system was more effective. “Teachers could give extra credit to those who were consistent with putting it in,” Hanna said. “It was less of a distraction during class time since it was far away from us, but we could still have it during down time.” Allowing phone usage during down time was a plus for a few students, including Williams who said he enjoyed that flexibility.
But teachers have different ideas about the old pocket system. O’Gorman said, “The pocket system was a good idea but it required teachers to do more things. Not every teacher has the time to worry about whose phone is in the pocket.”
