A lingering question loomed over the summer months as school leaders scrambled to develop policies that adhered to the new state law banning personal communication devices in schools: Would students actually comply?
On Wednesday, as school got underway in many districts across the state, some answers began emerging — and they weren’t encouraging for proponents of the ban.
Outside Concord High School on a brisk, autumn-like first morning of school, students nearly unanimously predicted the ban would be short-lived.
“I personally don’t think that it will stay around,” senior Beckett Horton said. “I think something’s going to change. I think there’s just too many things in our life that revolve around technology and phones.”
Two boys, who declined to share their names, scoffed when asked whether they would adhere to Concord’s policy, which requires students to keep their devices in their backpacks.
“We’re all adults. I paid for my phone,” one of them said.
Senior Mika Taylor said she learned just the day before that the ban applied not just to instructional time but to lunch and passing periods, too. Though she said she would begrudgingly follow the law, she questioned how staff could ensure all 1,400 students comply.
“I’ll be respectful about it, but I don’t know actually how much it’s going to be enforced,” she said.
Reached again at the end of the day, however, Taylor said she was surprised by how seriously the school took the ban. Each of her teachers described Concord’s warning system and explained why the law had been enacted. During passing periods, they patrolled the hallways and asked students who had their phones in their pockets to move them to the backpacks, she said.
“It definitely seemed like the teachers were pretty intense about it,” Taylor said. “They did talk to us about why it would be beneficial. I do get that part, but maybe a middle ground would be better.”
Taylor and other students predicted that being separated from their phones would prove impractical because they use them to find their friends during lunch and to coordinate logistics for sports practices and games.
“It’s harder for us to communicate with the freshman on where to pick them up and bring them everywhere,” said Lillian O’Hara, a senior on the field hockey team. “I guess they did it back in the day, but with the technology we do have, we should be using that technology rather than banning it.”
Senior Mia Roberts speculated that, if teachers continued enforcing the ban, it would lead to an increase in fighting during the school day.
“Our freshman year, they were really strict on phones and there were a lot more fights,” she said. If students can’t access their phones, “they can’t fight online anymore.”
Sentiment on the ban wasn’t wholly negative, however.
Freshman who were coming from a school that already had a bell-to-bell ban said they were unfazed.
“I think it’s alright; it’s nothing different for me,” said Mason Romboldi.
Outside Hopkinton Middle High School on Wednesday morning, some students expressed support for the change.
“It’s going to teach students more discipline,” sophomore Ollie Zahn said. “It’ll have them not on their phone as much, so I feel like people will get better grades.”
Though he believed he could easily follow the law, Zahn agreed with his counterparts in Concord that many of his classmates would struggle to abide by it.
“That’s going to be a problem,” he said. “So they might have to switch up the policy. But for now, I think it might work for the first couple of weeks.”
Most school administrators have opted for the least restrictive approach to regulating technology use in high schools, a Concord Monitor survey of principals at 13 area schools found.
Several schools considered, but ultimately opted against, requiring students to store phones in secure pouches or their lockers in order to reduce the temptation students feel to use their devices.
Parents in Franklin and school board members in Pembroke heavily lobbied against such an approach, arguing that students should be able to access their phones in the event of an emergency.
Others pushed back that students would flout the law if they were granted the freedom to regulate themselves.
Hopkinton junior Ryan Barrett said that she plans to keep her phone completely turned off so as not to experience “phantom” notifications.
“It’s gonna be hard to adjust to not having it all,” she said. “I text my mom a lot during the day.”
“Ultimately, it’ll be okay, and it’s for the best,” she added.
Sruthi Gopalakrishnan contributed reporting.