The Palo Alto Unified School District is implementing a schoolwide policy in which all phones are put away before class. Following the signing of Assembly Bill 3216 by Governor Gavin Newsom, all schools will be required to develop a policy to limit phones by July 1. The Paly Voice asked students and staff at Palo Alto High School what they thought of this new policy.
“I frequently leave my phone in the phone holders in various classrooms, and I forget about it. … It [the phone policy] is really annoying because if it’s [the phone pockets] at the back of the classroom, there’s congestion when everyone tries to leave.”
— Will Jackson , 11th grade
“It [the phone policy] is not a big deal. You’ll survive without your phone for a few hours. I feel like when we were able to have our phones in class and everything, people would constantly go on their phones, check, play whatever, and they’re not concentrating as much.”
— Esmeralda Menjivar, 11th grade
“I love it [the phone policy]. … I and my colleagues were talking about the fact that we didn’t realize how much energy — brain energy and just classroom energy — we were using to manage phones, so it was such a difference those first two days. I wasn’t like, ‘Get off your phone, get off your phone,’ so selfishly, as a teacher, I really enjoy it [the phone policy]. I also do think that students were less distracted. … I would love to reassess and reflect on the first quarter to see how things go.”
— Katya Villalobos, social science teacher
“I think it’s good for teachers to admit it [the phone policy] for the avoidance of distraction throughout the class, because it’s scientifically proven that people have more of a pull when it [the phone] is right on them or next to them. It’ll be easier to focus on work. ”
— Andrew Knapp, 10th grade
“I think that students expect to put their phones away and the consistency around school has made it completely normalized. … I have noticed students more engaged in class [and] less distracted by potentially buzzing phones. … I have had students with texts from parents all class long, so it’s nice knowing that the expectation is that they [students] don’t have their phone until passing period.”
— Alicia Szebert, chemistry teacher