Written by: Pax Bilinski / Editor in chief & Lily Amback / Managing editor
Senate Bill 78, the new cell phone ban affecting all Indiana public schools, has been widely debated by parents, students and teachers alike.
However, the school administration sees this as an improvement to the school system.
“You can already see a big difference as students leave the classroom and are actually talking to each other or laughing with their friends,” principal James Voelz said. “Typically, people would grab their phones, because they haven’t seen it in a half hour or so and wanted to see what they missed on social media during that time. Kids would bump into each other in the hallways because they were staring down at their phones. So, I think it is going to achieve the goal of students’ heads being up and their eyes being focused on their friends and other people.”
This is not only going into effect for high school students, but for all ages in the school district, and the state, who have personal cellular devices.
“The overall expectation is consistent across NPCS: personal wireless devices must be powered off and stored out of sight for the entire school day. Where devices are stored may look slightly different based on the age of students. At the elementary level, devices are stored in classroom cubbies, while students in grades 6–12 store them in their lockers,” superintendent Gina Pleak said.
On the first day of school, the most phones were found as students were still adjusting to this new restriction.
“We had the most phones in the building on the first day of school and the numbers went down throughout the weeks after that,” assistant principal Mitchell Burk said.
This number did not go down because the school isn’t regulating the ban, but because the school administration is watching closely for cell phones.
“Well, I think before last week, one of the misconceptions was that it was going to be a ‘This is what we have to say, but we still were going to look the other way,’ and this would just fade away after a few weeks, plenty of students indicated a large amount that they would have been surprised that this was still happening by fall break,” Burk said. “As building leaders, we were making sure that it was known that on the first day of school that this is what we’re doing. It’s going to be the same on day one as it will be on day 180.”
However, the school admits that the anxiety carried by students is understandable.
“I think, initially, it causes a lot of anxiety and introduces a new way of living that they aren’t used to, which is usually tough for teenagers. It would be tough for adults to all of a sudden have to put their phone up and not use it the entire day, or to put it up at night. I think getting used to it is the toughest part. It’s different and change is hard to deal with,” Voelz said.
But, to help students cope with the absence of their phones, the district has enabled StudentSquare to allow students to communicate with their parents throughout the day. StudentSquare is not exactly like texting, though. Students can only message school staff and their parents so that it is not a distraction during structured class time.
But, as the school year goes on, administrators believe that this anxiety will diminish, and the outcome will generate a better sense of communication.
“I think that it was going to be unavoidable at the beginning. And I think that the reality is that growth is rarely something that just kind of comes easily. I would be shocked if you surveyed all the students in the building if they didn’t all admit that they have an addiction to their phone and that they knew that it was going to be better for their overall health that they were on their phone less. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not going to be anxious about it by making those changes,” Burk said. “
I genuinely think that there’s going to be better friendships, better relationships, better communication happening amongst people because they’re actually practicing it and not just when a teacher forces you to do group projects, but actually just organically in the hallway or in a classroom or at the lunch table.”
