A controlled roar of student voices fills the cafeteria at Vallivue High School. When asked if it’s louder in the cafeteria this year than it used to be, teachers, upperclassmen, and administrators nod vigorously.  

What’s missing from the picture are “personal communication devices” or PCDs. Under the district’s now strictly enforced electronics policy, cell phones, headphones, and smartwatches are all banned and must be kept in student lockers for the entire school day, including lunch. 

Before, the district technically had a no-cell phone policy, but it was only sporadically enforced and was mostly teacher-dependent.

The music is loud and students take turns requesting songs. One group of friends plays cards while another does adult coloring. Students also play ping-pong, cornhole, and giant connect-four. 

“Every day coming to work it’s like it’s 1999,” assistant principal Allen Dade joked. Students also say they feel they’ve gone back in time. 

The vivacious lunch atmosphere is part of first-year principal Kellie Dean’s plan to smoothly transition to the new districtwide policy. Dean has been in education for over 30 years and spent four years at Vallivue before becoming principal. 

Dean saw the idea for “fun lunches” with games and activities on Good Morning America. Now, she walks down to lunch daily with a cart full of card and board games.

“The first few times we took [the cart] down there, I felt like I was at a major league baseball game trying to pedal hot dogs,” she explained. “Now, the students wait for the cart and they run over and grab [what they want].”  

A group of senior girls playing Uno said they never imagined playing card games during lunch. 

At first, “no one was thrilled about [the phone policy]” one of them explained. “But I think it’s kind of fun now. Every day you sit down and play a game and talk about life.” She said before they would still talk, but would also be listening to headphones and on their phones. 

Still, it’s an adjustment. The girls discussed how they have to make plans for sports practices and social things the night before school, and forgetting can lead to stressful after-school scrambles.

Of the new phone policy Dean said: “I would say that even in the few weeks that we’ve been in school, it’s almost palpable, that you can feel the difference in our hallways, in our cafeteria, in the classroom. The teachers have told me this is one of the best things that we have ever done because the kids are talking together. They’re communicating.” 

“In my classroom, I’ve had the best engagement I’ve ever had,” art teacher and wrestling coach Nash Johnson said. He explained that some students used to choose to be on their phones during independent work time, causing them to get far behind on assignments. “This year, it’s been a lot easier to keep students on task during that time.” 

Origins of the Policy 

Last year, Vallivue School District principals began researching potential solutions to the problems created by phones, part of a national trend. According to Education Week, at least 15 states have passed bans or restrictions on cell phone use in school. 

“I’ve been fighting it for years,” said science teacher Gary Griffith, who has tried various classroom no-phone policies over the past 11 years and was ecstatic when the district announced the change. 

Dean explained that phones were not only an academic distraction, but administrators were also seeing a rise in the frequency of physical fights at school, which Dean says were heightened by students making videos of the fights and posting them to social media. 

“The physical aggression was alarming,” Dean emphasized. 

Though the district had a no-cell phone policy before, it was previously not consistently enforced throughout the district, leaving teachers to decide on and enforce their own policies. 

Johnson said the inconsistency was difficult, with teachers who wanted to control phones in the class having to choose to be the “bad guy” from the perspective of the students. 

The school district sent out letters in July detailing the new strict no-phone policy. Quickly, students expressed their disagreement, sending around a “Move-On” petition with “quite a few signatures,” according to Dean. 

One of the signatures was from student Tyler Buckley. “I wasn’t really happy at first,” he explained. He mainly worried about difficulty communicating with parents and friends.

The district worked to address concerns, which centered mostly around parent/student communication during the school day. They explained that the office could pass notes to students when needed.

Adjusting to the Policy 

The new phone policy has been in place for around two months. 

Junior Preston Hansen said when he first heard about the policy it was “kind of shocking” and that he and his friends were a little angry. However, he said it helped once school started and they had an assembly dedicated in part to discussing the new phone policy. “It gave us the answers to our questions about why they were doing this.” 

Not all students expressed the same optimism. “The phone problem wasn’t really a problem,” one student said. “There were like five kids that were on their phone all the time and it wasn’t manageable for the teachers…the biggest effect it’s had on us as students is…it’s way harder to communicate with our parents.” He said the office wasn’t very effective in making up for this lack of communication. 

Click here to watch a short video of student reactions to the new policy.