By Perry Smith

Starting on August 27, 2024, Collegiate School officially enacted a new rule regarding phone usage on campus during the school day. The policy states, “Students will store any device brought to campus at the start of their school day and collect the device(s) at the end of the academic day,” according to the 2024-25 Collegiate Family Handbook.

Upper School phone locker. Photo credit: Perry Smith.

In the Upper School, this rule has been effectively implemented using the newly added “phone lockers.” These lockers in Pitt Hall are organized by advisory and contain designated slots for each student to place their phone before the school day begins. As explained in an October Match article by Aanika Sethi (‘25), “students would put their phones in a designated place and retrieve their phones at the end of the school day, not using them during school hours.”

Many different factors have played into the effectiveness of the new policy, including the strict requirement that all phones must be turned in before the student’s first period class begins. This means leaving phones at home or in cars is not allowed for this routine to work. 

Students expressed irritated and concerned opinions when this policy was announced toward the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Spencer Conrad (‘25) recently discussed her opinions regarding this rule, explaining, “When I first heard some of the rumors from my friends discussing the enforcement of this rule, my first reaction was to be upset and overall just annoyed that I would have to deal with this rule during my last year in high school.” The new phone policy seemed like a task she would have to adjust to, all the while not having access to the phone she had grown accustomed to having at school.

As students worried about this new policy at the end of last year, Upper School Head Patrick Loach gathered the students and had a class meeting with each grade to discuss how this policy would be implemented. During this discussion, Loach went into detail about the conditions that would apply, and he allowed students to ask questions and express their concerns. Caroline Zandler (‘25) recently explained how she remembered feeling after this discussion: “I appreciated Loach taking the time to help us better understand the details about the new phone rule, but I still left the meeting feeling unhappy and uneasy about how I would be able to adjust to this kind of change in my day-to-day school life.”

Image credit: Techjunkie.

A justification for this new phone policy was the impact screens can have on mental health. One specific study conducted by researchers at the Yale Department of Psychiatry and Columbia School of Nursing found that “youth who spent the most time on digital technology exhibited higher levels of depression, anxiety, social anxiety, aggression, defiance, and bullying.”

Due to the increasing concern for students’ well-being, this policy is not just being implemented by Collegiate. Many schools across the nation have also decided to enforce similar policies, including Richmond Public Schools. As explained on the district’s website, “The policy is designed to reduce distractions in the classroom and promote student focus and engagement.” Loach explained in May that with this new policy in place, a key goal would be to help mental health improve in students and lessen the negative impacts of phones.

When the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year finally approached, and the phone rule was officially in action, students began the process of adjusting to the change. Amelia Chen (’25) explained how she has gotten more comfortable with this policy. Chen said, “Now that I haven’t had my phone for so long, I can’t even believe that we could have our phones all of high school.” Chen went on to explain that the change at the beginning of the year was hard to navigate, but after only a few weeks of this new policy, she could feel herself struggling with the change significantly less. This seemed to be a common theme in interviews with other students, as many commented on the fact that they have adjusted well to this new change and don’t see it bothering them as much anymore.

When asked about the transition this school year, Upper School Director of Student Life Beth Kondorossy said, “The transition into the new phone policy went much better than anyone was expecting.” She continued to explain how students handled this change exceptionally well, and the new policy seemed to be helping students quite soon into the new school year. Kondorossy described the changes caused by the new phone policy as quickly visible. There was noticeably more interaction among students in between classes and during lunch periods. Students seemed to be significantly more social with each other, spending less time on their devices and more time talking with their friends 

When this new policy first went into place, a hope that was stated by Loach was that the enforcement of no phones at school could impact students to instinctively use their phones less at home and during after-school hours. When I asked students about their experience with their phone usage at home, Bella Little (’25) said, “I would say that I definitely use it more than I would like at home now.” Many students seemed to agree with this statement. Although they enjoyed being more productive at school without their phones, it seems a common issue that phone usage at home has now spiked.