Ireton Cell Phone Rule

The Cellphone Rule of Bishop Ireton

By Will Claeys

Few things are as difficult for everyone in the Bishop Ireton school community as major updates to school rules. Since this fall, the phone policy at the school has seen some significant change from the past two years. With such an update, students and teachers have had to make many adjustments to both class and hallway procedures having to do with the usages of cell phones in school. Following a preface explaining the reasoning for the new policy, the updated school handbook states: “Cell phone use is not permitted for students during the instructional day (with the exceptions listed below), nor is a student allowed to have a cell phone on their person during the instructional day.”

In effect, this restricts cell phone usage in the classroom, the hallway, study hall, advisory, and anywhere else in the school besides the designated lunch areas during the lunch period. Cell phone usage is prohibited even if it may be for educational purposes. Students have had various reactions to and experiences with this change in rules and its intention “to foster healthy engagement with teachers and classmates.” When asked about the difficulties in adjusting to this change in rules, senior Jacob Middel said, “I’m so used to being able to check simple things such as when I had time in advisory such as the weather or the time, and now it feels weird that I’m not even allowed to have it in my pocket.”

Senior Connor Bourne responded similarly to the same question: “I feel like it has been moderately difficult to adjust to the updated phone policy.” When asked about the academic and social effects of these policies, Jacob said “I have not noticed a big change, I have actually noticed the opposite where most people have that interaction during lunch when we couldn’t have our phones but now we are glued to them during social time.” Connor too emphasized a change during lunchtime: “I feel that because of the phone policy after school kids are just glued to their phones during lunch time in the cafeteria.” However, there was a disagreement between Connor and Jacob over how much computers could replace phones. Although Connor claimed computer use may not be possible to replace most of the usages of cell phones, Jacob instead said that computers could perform most functions phones could, with the exception of turning in assignments. Although there are many differing personal reactions to these rules, the school community is finding new ways to interact with these restrictions that can serve as paths forward from the new technology policy.