With the new phone policy, many students have become overwhelmed with the concept of them not being allowed to use their phones at all during class hours. Some people say that this is for the better, as if it gives students chances to really focus on their in class lectures and work. Some people think that it’s not necessary, and will most likely lead to sneaky habits or behaviors of them breaking the rules. There are many thoughts and opinions about this subject and I am here to spread the word out on how students feel about this new phone policy.
We got a total of 188 responses regarding the questionnaire about the phone policy, in total 167 of them are students. Majority of them feel that the new phone policy has both pros and cons. It’s often said amongst all the grades that this new policy enforces a place of learning and aids students to want to focus more in class. Others say that the lack of a warning system is overwhelming and too strict.
For freshmen, a common thing being stated is that now being in high school, they themselves should be more dependent on themselves and don’t need a phone policy to dictate their decisions on how they choose to spend their time in their class but, many are also saying that this new phone policy is influencing good habits of going to class ready and prepared to learn.
Additionally the majority of Sophomores believe that if students have free time to themselves after independent work time; they should have the option to get on their phones. Moreover, they also believe that this new phone policy has caused students to come out of their shell a bit more and give them a better opportunity to talk to their classmates they normally wouldn’t talk to.
With Juniors, a lot have said that they believe that the punishment for having your phones out while in class is very irrational and harsh, having to go to the office and turn in your phone the entire day, let alone if your caught again it’s for a week, is very shocking to a lot of students but I have seen this common pattern showed in the responses from the Juniors the most. Although they believe this, they believe in the good of how the policy creates less distractions in the classroom and the reasoning for this policy to come into existence makes sense.
Next we have the Seniors, a lot of them have said there are a lot of useful tools on the phone that you cannot access due to the restrictions on the computer, by using it on the students personal phones, they are able to quickly and better understand new sources of information that is being taught in their classes. However, there have been cases where Seniors feel that they have learned self-control which is an important skill to learn in your future preparing for the future ahead of us.
Overall, students of all grades feel like this new policy is beneficial to us students, yet there are problems amongst the system that could improve. This did not really surprise me but what did surprise me was how on board teachers were about this new phone policy.
We had 21 teachers respond to this as well and the conclusion is that all of them are on board with this new policy and have shown immense amounts of love for it. They believe that it overall, the policy has improved student behavior immensely and improves their overall time management skills when it’s time to turn in assignments. Not one teacher had one bad thing to say about this policy and hope that this policy will continue to positively influence students throughout the school year!
In summary, many students of CCHS believe that the new phone policy is beneficial but could be improved by providing a more generous warning system, giving punishments to students that broke the rule that aren’t too extreme, and giving students a little bit of independence when we are available to use phones during class time hours. Although students feel both ways, teachers are loving this new rule and promote it to give students the best learning experience for their future.
