It was not the way Derek Hamilton wanted to introduce himself to his new Pembroke Academy students.
The first-year headmaster had been on the job just three weeks when he convened a group of about 20 rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors for a chat. Tasked with hastily developing a procedure to implement the state’s new bell-to-bell phone ban, Hamilton wanted input on what approach the students could get behind.
It quickly became apparent that many members of the group, who were helping to run a summer program for incoming freshmen, didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of the change that was about to confront them.
“There was a thought that maybe they could still listen to music during class,” Hamilton said. “There was the thought that [the devices] could still be used freely during lunch time.”
He had to break the news that the law required all of that to stop.
“That hit them pretty hard,” Hamilton, the former principal of Pittsfield Middle High School, recalled in an interview last week. “It really elicited some strong responses.”
As the meeting progressed, the headmaster presented three possibilities: administrators could require that students store their phones in lockers; they could purchase Velcro or magnetic pouches for the devices, the latter of which would lock automatically when students entered and exited the building; or they could do nothing and let the students regulate themselves.
New to the Pembroke community, Hamilton faced a delicate balancing act. A policy widely opposed by students could get him off on the wrong foot with them and prompt wide-scale resistance. However, one that was too lenient could prove ineffective at changing behavior and increase time-consuming and unpleasant confrontations between students and teachers, many of whom already resent their role in policing phone use during instructional time.
As a meeting to present his plan to Pembroke’s school board approached, Hamilton settled on a recommendation that he felt would strike a middle ground: Purchasing Velcro pouches for every high school student to store their phone in throughout the day.
“We didn’t feel like going the status quo route would send the message to students that this is different,” he said, referring to the approach of allowing students to retain their devices. “This has to be different.”
But Hamilton learned at a meeting last week that the school board vehemently opposed his proposal – and the new law itself. With just two weeks until the start of school, he and his team are now pivoting, he said.
The challenging process of policymaking in Pembroke offers a glimpse of the thorny and rushed decisions now facing school boards and administrators across the state, as they scramble to settle on approaches that balance the conflicting needs and desires of many constituencies.
Much to the frustration of many school leaders, including Pembroke’s school board, the law itself – among the strictest in the country – offers little guidance on how to implement the most drastic educational change since the pandemic.
‘Stupid law’
Less than a year ago, as statewide phone bans began to sweep the nation, there seemed to be little appetite for New Hampshire to follow suit. Gov. Chris Sununu told the Concord Monitor at the time that the decision was “best left to local districts.” Many of the top leaders of the Senate and House education committees from both parties said they agreed with him.
When Gov. Kelly Ayotte won election last November, however, she immediately struck a different tone, declaring a bell-to-bell ban a signature policy priority. Quickly, lawmakers from both parties expressed rare bipartisan support for the measure, citing increasingly compelling evidence that phone use is causing or exacerbating a mental health and attention crisis among young people.
Lost in the excitement around the new law was consideration of exactly how to perform the delicate task of extracting addictive devices from preteens and teenagers on a daily basis. Since the ban became law on July 1, the state Department of Education has released no technical guidance.
In early July, the state’s school boards association provided a sample policy that would require students to keep their devices in an “assigned locker, backpack, or handbag.” Other than that, administrators and school boards have largely been left to fend for themselves.
After consulting over the course of roughly 10 conversations with the students, teachers, the district’s new superintendent, and staff at Stevens High School in Claremont – the only high school in the state that is known to already have a bell-to-bell ban – Hamilton and his administrative team settled on their proposal.
Though the students opposed the introduction of a phone containment mechanism, Hamilton believed that the lack of one would fail to send a direct enough message that students were entering a new era – particularly outside of class.
“How do we implement this law in areas where 700 kids are transitioning from one place to another, and in the lunch room, where there’s four or five administrators and 200 plus kids?” he said. “So when we thought about that, that’s where the leaning toward pouches came from.”
But Pembroke’s school board emphatically disagreed.
Gathering for their first meeting since the law went into effect, the board nixed the pouches, but the members’ opposition extended beyond Hamilton’s proposal.
“This is a stupid law. This is absolutely stupid,” said Gene Gauss, the longest serving board member. “This is out of the realm of the legislature’s responsibility. It’s taking local control away from us as a school board, you as administrators, and teachers, and parents.”
Months after the board waged a successful public education campaign about school funding in New Hampshire following the surprise reduction of its proposed budget in 2024, board members said they felt hamstrung by what they characterized as another unfunded state mandate.
The pouches would cost the district $17.99 per student, a total of roughly $13,000 to buy enough for the high school. (Pembroke’s middle school – Three Rivers – has long required students to keep their devices in their lockers all day.)
“I could spend that so many different ways,” Kerri Dean said.
“Yeah, like unlock the bathrooms and put some vape sensors in there so that the kids can go to the bathroom,” board chair Melanie Camelo added. “It’s a little more important than the bags for the cell phones.”
The board’s displeasure also extended to the scope of the ban. Though all board members believed students shouldn’t be allowed to use their phones during instructional time, at least two thought a bell-to-bell ban was impractical and unfair.
“I have a lot of issues with not allowing the kids to at least have their phones during lunch,” Dean said, noting the logistical challenges that will arise when students can’t communicate with family members regarding changes to pickup schedules.
“If we’re the school board, we can approve an exception for lunch,” Gauss suggested, arguing that lunch was the students’ time and not part of the school day.
That idea prompted superintendent Jessica Bickford to intercede.
“I just want to put on the record that I cannot in good conscience support us violating state law,” she said, putting an end to the lunch exception debate.
Pivoting to a new plan
The meeting ended with a barebones policy adopted that accorded with the new law, but not much of a plan for how to implement it.
Kayden Mores, a rising high school senior and the only member of the public at the meeting, made a suggestion.
“We could just have conversations,” said Mores, a left tackle on the football team who has also worked on a policy for how the school handles AI.
“Just establish a mutual trust between the school and the teachers,” he urged. “That would just be a lot more helpful.”
Reached a few days after the meeting, Hamilton said he would largely adopt Mores’ advice. Though a bell-to-bell ban will be in place on the first day of school, he now expects that there won’t be a specific procedure for where students store their phones.
“We’ll go into class meetings with kids and have hopefully a deep, meaningful dialogue about what that look likes, and how we move forward from here,” Hamilton said.
The principal has been on the job just 45 days but he said the process of developing a response to the law has already taught him a lot about his new community.
“I’ve learned that people are not afraid to express their opinions, their values and beliefs,” he said. “We’ve had some very open and candid conversations and I’ve really appreciated that.”
A cultural shift as big as this one will take time, he recognizes.
“As we get into into the late fall, hopefully it becomes part of the way that we work,” Hamilton said. “But I recognize that it’s going to take some work.”
