This past winter, the district passed a phone policy that would ban cellphones during the school day, including passing period and during lunch. However, according to Principal Curtis Wilson of Benson High School, it may be difficult to enforce. He states, “During lunch time, we’d have to figure out a way to make sure kids don’t have their phones out, which is going to be very difficult to do without something like a Yondr.” He added, “We are still waiting to hear from the District office to see if the policy will still be ‘Cell Phones Off and Away All Day’ (including lunch). The Superintendent has the power and authority to add an addendum to the new cell phone policy where she can take away the all day piece and it would not include no cell phones during lunch as this would be difficult to enforce at the school level without any school resources.”
He continues, “We are hoping to hear from the District sometime in the early summer regarding the new District cell phone policy.” The cellphone policy in question, titled Student Use of Personal Electronic Devices in Schools, allows for exceptions that can include, “…others as defined by the Superintendent.”
In the article “Thanks to Yondr, Phones Are Gone” from the Cleveland Clarion, students at Cleveland (a school that uses Yondr) discuss how the policy of having a punishment for having phones out is the main thing mitigating phone use. They found that many students do not use Yondr pouches. This is important to Benson because it is a point of view that shows that Yondr pouches won’t necessarily be an ideal solution.
Another challenge for Benson is the cost; there are no funds available for Yondr pouches. Principal Wilson is clear about this, “We will not be utilizing the Yondr pouches next year because of funding. We do not have the necessary funds available to purchase Yondr for all of our students.”
During a January 7th, 2025 board meeting, former board member Andrew Scott, (who was still a member at the time) when asked about enforcement of the policy, responded, “We do have expectations of our students both on and off campus for a lot of our policies, so this is not any different from that, I don’t expect that we’re going to be policing our students rigorously on and off campus. I do think that, as with all of our other policies, as things come to our attention we will follow up on it.”
To conclude, the district phone policy is difficult to enforce during lunch as it is right now. There are no funds available for Yondr pouches next year, and Yondr pouches have been shown to not work effectively. However, there is word from the board that the phone policy will be enforced in the same way as their other policies, and that issues will be dealt with as they come to their attention. The superintendent has the power to add exceptions to the cell phone policy, and Principal Wilson has reached out to the district office about an exception being made to the policy during lunch; he hopes to hear back in early summer.
