As the school year is slowly coming to an end, students and staff are gaining insight into a new policy next year. Principal Anthony Clark-Kaczmarek is planning to put his “cell phone task force” into action at the start of the 2024-2025 school year.
This plan consists of students and teachers putting their phones out of sight each period from bell to bell. Students and staff have voiced their thoughts on CK’s idea.
“I don’t think it (this policy) will be effective because people will find ways to sneak phones in,” said sophomore Carlos Serrano.
Students said that they believe CK, and the administration is being harsh by enforcing this.
CK has had this plan in mind for a while now. Many schools across the district have — and are still putting “no phone” policies into action. Benson, Central High and Burke started similar policies at the beginning of this school year. Buena Vista started their no phone policy at the beginning of the second semester.
“The purpose is to try and remove distractions in the classroom.” CK said. “we’ve noticed that a lot of classrooms have students who are distracted by their phones and not focused on learning.”
In multiple classrooms, teachers have voiced that they’ve seen a decline in grades and believe technology is the problem. The distraction it creates and causes students to become unfocused on what the teacher is saying.
Most students have a phone. When walking into a school environment, you will stumble across students with a cell phone in hand, headphones and AirPods in, or ears covered. Technology has become a way of life. Young kids, teenagers, adults and even older generations have addictions to technology, but why are teenagers the main target when being disciplined, called out and belittled when talking about addictions?
Human growth teacher, Anthony Hall, is preparing his students for this practice, as a member of the cell phone task force formed by CK himself. In his classroom, there are no phones or listening devices in sight until, or if he allows students to use them, whether it’s for research or because they have a few spare minutes before the bell rings. Other teachers have started doing this as well.
Looking at the upcoming school year, CK expects to have a distraction free learning environment, alongside GPA increases.
