Exploring Cell Phone Collection Policies in Schools: Are We Setting Students Up for Success or Limiting Their Independence?

let’s address the elephant in the room cellphones now I don’t know about you but my state required that school districts form cellphone collection policies so one of my first tasks as assistant principal was to come up with a policy to collect every phone from every student after students arrive to school they head to the cell phone collection station where they turn off their cell phone they give it to the person working the station the person working the station then takes the phone puts it in a pouch we lock the pouch we put the pouch in a cart we lock the cart and we lock the cart in the office for the day some schools are letting students keep the locked pouches in their bags for the day some schools aren’t even using pouches but everyone has their own different policy I think it’s great that students are not sitting on their phones during class and that teachers are not getting in a daily power struggle but at the end of the day cell phones are not going anywhere and we are now raising students who are going through 12th grade with having their cell phone collected from them and then they show up to college or to work and they suddenly have this device at their fingertips like what are we actually doing and it’s these kinds of policies that really make me sit back and wonder is this the right choice or are we doing the right thing and I’m curious to hear what your state what your school is doing down in the comments and what you think about it