Mr. Leland held a school assembly to talk about a policy change regarding phones. This was a spark of controversy among staff and students.

“Yeah I don’t mind it cause I have just never really struggled with having to be off my phone but when the policy started I think that a lot of kids were just kinda dramatic about it or were trying to fight back. Personally, I don’t think they should, I would just let it be and just listen to what the teachers have to say because we don’t want any more issues to arise and stuff like that.” – Sage

 

“Personally the phone policy doesn’t affect me to much because I am not on my phone in class but I do notice that a lot of kids do not like the new phone policy because of their attachment to social media and how they think it’s dumb because it is such a quick change of practice in an already existing policy – It was very blunt and they did not give us a lot of time to prepare.” – Brady

 

“To be fair the new phone policy isn’t super different from the policies I have had most of these years. Probably more or so after the first month or two of school realizing that it’s such a distraction. – I have also tried to modeled hey I am getting a phone call today from my daughters school or I got a coaching thing coming up and knowing that might come up. Cause sometimes they are things. I always ask students hey if you have something special or if there is a specific emergency because I mean you guys have parents and family members. Sometimes you are going to get a call because someone has surgery today or they have something or my mom is trying to figure out how to pick me up from school. Those are real life situations where it makes sense that you have it with you at that time.”  – Mrs. Hamnerick

Students and staff alike have opinions on how effective the policy currently is.

“I think that there should be a different way. Personally I believe that they should just put their phones in their pockets right away. I don’t think that there should be warnings or stuff like that because some kids just don’t learn and it takes them a while to learn how to get off their phone. If I was a teacher I would not want to go through that.” – Sage

 

“I don’t think the way they approached it was very good. They didn’t consider like the student body as much as they should of. And I have heard from some of the SVC members how they were not listened to as well or they didn’t get their opinions out there quick enough or weren’t followed through as well and now a lot of students don’t like the approach that they went with it and how they wanted to keep continuity but some teachers were very strict about the putting it in the pockets and how a couple of the teacher I have heard haven’t been making it a choice they have been strictly put it in the pocket at the beginning of class. Whatever, you can’t keep it on you and all that kind of stuff.” – Brady

 

“I think that it was probably the quickest and best option that we had in a short term fix. Ultimately we have to figure out a way to be less distracting. Sadly, phones rule too much of our lives.” Mrs. Hamnerick 

 

Students and staff both have ideas that they thought would be good to have implemented.

“I think there should have been more of a warning that we are doing this and like a discussion on it in each class. Like a 5 minute discussion. Like hey what are your guy’s thoughts on this? What do you think would be best?” – Sage

 

“Currently, I don’t think that there is a good way to solve it. I think the best way to avoid such a thing like this is to teach kids, maybe have RTI sessions, how to avoid the habit of being on social media for so long. One of the biggest arguments from students I have heard is they have been attached to their phones and their only way of communicating was their phone through the entirety of the covid lockdown and all that stuff and all that social distancing stuff really hurt them mentally through the attachment of phones and how they were forced to basically rely on technology throughout online learning and it did not flow to switch to 5 days a week at school.”

 

“I think that it is going to take practice. I think that it is going to be hard to put it away. I think that if we can come to an understanding and kinda better regulate ourselves to knowing that okay I am going to put it away for an hour but that means I get to look at it for ten minutes. “ – Mrs. Hamnerick 

The phone policy will continue to be in effect to hopefully help our Spectrum students learn. The phone policy can be visited here at this link: Phone Policy