On Jan. 7 2025, the Portland Public Schools (PPS) Board of Education voted to approve a new district-wide phone policy which will be enacted in the fall of the 2025-26 school year. All students in PPS schools, regardless of their grade, will be expected to store cell phones away all day, including during lunch and passing periods. Implementation of the policy will be left up to schools. It passed on a 5-2 vote, with members Herman Greene and Gary Hollands voting in opposition. Student Representative to the board JJ Kunsevi, who has an unofficial vote, also voted in opposition.
While the policy doesn’t specify an enforcement mechanism, it does require that the off-and-away policy is followed in every school. At the beginning this school year, a few PPS schools implemented similar phone policies of their own, through the use of Yondr pouches, a magnetic system where phones are locked upon entry to the school and unlocked upon exit. However, policies across the district have been inconsistent. In some schools, students kept their phones with them or stored them in pockets at the front of classrooms. “Before the use of Yondr pouches, students would put their phones away at the beginning of class, expecting not to use them throughout the learning day,” said PPS board member Eddie Wang. The board expressed concern with inconsistent compliance with pre-Yondr policies.
The new policy does come with some exceptions, including for students with Individual Education Plans, 504 Plans, and for academic activities as determined by a building administrator. Other exceptions may be added by the superintendent. The board noted that costs of implementation for schools could vary from $8,000 to $750,000 depending on the mechanism used. It is unclear whether or not this will be paid for by the district or by individual schools. PPS communications did not respond to requests for comment.
Other board members expressed concerns that the use of the phones in school led to poor mental and physical health, as well as distractions in the classroom. “Everyone will be fine without a phone for six hours, we can survive that,” said Michelle DePass, a member of the board and a proponent of the new policy.
However, many students at Grant and Cleveland High Schools — which piloted full-day phone restrictions and Yondr pouches beginning this year — reported that they disregarded the Yondr pouches, even going as far as to place fake phones inside of the pouch. While not every student was caught, schools were having to take disciplinary action, such as confiscating the device or calling guardians to grab their child’s phone from school. Ian Ritorto, a member of the District Student Council who was elected to represent Roosevelt High School, points out that even if students are meant to remove phones from sight, they might not be truthful in putting away their devices, saying, “I forgot it” or “ I don’t have it with me today.”
During a policy committee meeting on Dec. 2 2024, Wang mentioned seeing an increase in test scores and achievement for students who were required to have their phones away during the entirety of the day. However, board member Julia Brim-Edwards — who ultimately voted in favor of the policy — said on the Jan. 7 meeting, “I do think there’s lots of legitimate reasons during the school day to check in on work, on childcare and coordinating with others. I also think there are times when our students are off campus they need their phones when they’re driving somewhere that makes our students safer.”
Another hope with the addition of the policy is that students will have more face to face interaction with peers and staff, leading to more positive experiences at school. During the board meeting on Dec. 2 members of the board had a heated discussion regarding the idea of having phones away during lunch hours and passing periods. Wang mentioned test score increases of up to “7% overall in test scores in students and 14 % among the lowest performing students” for schools whose policies prohibit phones during lunch and passing periods.
Roosevelt High School (RHS) is one of the PPS schools that doesn’t yet use Yondr pouches. RHS has the same policy as Franklin, enforcing calculator-holder style phone pouches at the front of each classroom, but allowing students to use their phone during passing period, lunch, and free periods. Ritoro also pointed out that the Yondr pouches used are expensive and paid for with funds from the district budget. He said, “To enforce something like an all-day phone ban would require a large amount of resources and would be ineffective.” Yondr pouches cost $25 to $30 per student.
The phone policy extends beyond high schools to middle and elementary schools. “I’m not allowed to use my phone at all, and if I get seen with it I get in trouble,” said Lovely Castillo, an 8th grader from Beaumont Middle School. She argued that the policy takes away student privacy, and said, “They offer to let us use the phone in the office if we need to contact family, but if you had a personal emergency, having to use the phone if front of everyone could make someone embarrassed, and not reach out even if they needed to.”
