The New Policy
At the beginning of this school year, a new phone policy was introduced in response to legislation that passed in Iowa on April 30, 2025. The law requires public K-12 school districts to implement policies that limit student cell phone use during instructional time, beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. ADM’s handbook says, “ADM High School will be implementing a policy restricting the use of cell phones, smartwatches, and earbuds during school hours, a decision aimed at fostering a more focused and engaging learning environment. The growing reliance on these devices has been linked to distractions, reduced face-to-face interactions, and challenges in maintaining academic integrity. By creating a phone-free space, the school hopes to encourage students to fully engage in their classes, improve social interactions, and promote overall mental well-being.” This means there are no phones during passing periods or lunch, which was allowed last year.
This wasn’t taken well by the student body, as most students detested it, such as student Isabelle Book.
“When I first heard about the new phone policy, I didn’t really like it because we’d had phones for the last two years, so I thought it was going to be hard to adjust. I used my phone a lot last year during passing periods because no one really cared, and sometimes there wasn’t really anything else to do,” Book said.
My own experience, however, has been different. Although at first I was a little upset when I heard about the policy, after thinking about it, I realized all I did on my phone during passing period was play Block Blast and text to avoid making eye contact with others. Which was the whole point of the new policy.
I think that it was working at first, too; lunch rooms and hallways were louder, people were talking in the halls, and there were even phone caddies in every classroom to focus on school work. However, once open requests started being accepted, and teachers and students started to care less, that’s when it started to go downhill.
The Downfall
Instead of staying in the lunch rooms and eating with friends or peers, students started hiding in their cars so they could be on their phones. At the beginning of each semester, lunch rooms would be crowded and loud (and almost too loud), but as the semester would progress, people would start funneling out the doors and leaving the school, even if it was just for 30 minutes. which was observed by senior Mackenzie Postel.
“I remember at the beginning of the semester, there were so many people in the lunch room, it was hard to find a seat. And it was loud, like really loud. Now there’s like ten of us eating lunch in the lunchroom, it makes it eerily quiet and kinda sad,” Postel said.
Along with the quiet lunchrooms, you can look around your classrooms and see students playing on their phones behind computer screens, or in some classes, right in front of teachers’ faces. serving as a distraction to the learning environment and completely ignoring the new policy and legislation.
The Solution
So, what can be added to the policy so it can serve its original purpose of “encouraging students to fully engage in their classes, improve social interactions, and promote overall mental well-being.”?
During lunch, the issue isn’t the use of phones in schools; it’s the misuse of the open privilege. Therefore, I suggest making attendance at lunch mandatory for students who do not have a fifth or sixth-period free. This approach will make lunch periods more lively, creating social interaction within the school environment. Additionally, it will create a ripple effect that could increase revenue for our lunch program, allowing it to serve students better with the additional income.
The issue of phone usage in classrooms involves both the presence of phones and the lack of attention or concern from some teachers. My approach to address this problem is to create a stricter phone policy that allows teachers to focus on teaching without worrying about whether students are on their phones. My solution is to implement numbered phone caddies for attendance. Instead of marking students tardy based on their physical presence, we can use their phones for attendance. If a student chooses not to place their phone in the caddy, they will be marked tardy and could face consequences such as detention or Saturday school. Even though some students might refuse this rule or say they left their phones at home or in their cars, I believe this will reduce the usage of phones and encourage students to pay attention. Some classrooms have already adopted this method, but making it mandatory through school policy would help ensure that all classrooms move closer to being phone-free.
The phone policy was never really about taking phones away; it was about bringing students back into the school environment. While the policy has lost some of its effectiveness throughout the year, that does not mean the idea itself failed. The first few months proved that students are capable of interacting more, being louder, and engaging with the people around them when phones are not the center of attention. If ADM wants the policy to succeed long-term, the school needs consistency, accountability, and solutions that encourage students to stay connected to their school community instead of being disconnected behind a screen.
