A Cell Phone Policy for High School Students [Episode 205]

Rebecca Joyner [00:00:01]:
One question I feel like I get asked a lot, and it’s a question that I love to ask other teachers too, so I totally get it, is what is your cell phone policy? How do you handle cell phones? So I think it’s worth taking the time to kind of articulate all of my thoughts on this in one place. So I can always kind of point people to this as they ask, but also to let you know, like, you are not alone in this struggle. Cell phones are hard, and it’s something that’s going to continue to be a problem as we move forward. And it’s kind of something that we have to deal with and decide what we’re going to do with it. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about it. I’m going to share three things I really think you need to consider when it comes down to having a cell phone policy and then two different kind of ways. I’ve approached this in the past, one at one school and one at another, and what worked and what didn’t work for me. So let’s get into it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:00:54]:
This is Secondary Science Simplified, a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca Joyner from It’s Not Rocket Science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers, love their jobs, serve their students, and do it all in only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place, teachers friend. Let’s get to today’s episode. I genuinely don’t know if I’ve ever started a podcast episode without a preface, but I feel like I have to just for the sake of context. So I’m going to do it, even though I always do it. And that’s.

Rebecca Joyner [00:01:43]:
I have to say this to you, I just think this comes down to personal preference. There is no one perfect way to handle cell phones that’s gonna resonate with everybody. If there was, someone would already have, like, a course they’ve created about it and they’d be charging us all to know how to do it. So one thing I do recommend after you listen to this episode, is I made a spreadsheet a few months ago where I organized all of my podcast episodes. Now that there’s over 200, I organized them into concepts or like, topics. So it’s a Google spreadsheet and each tab has a different topic on it. And that way you can just go and you can like select a topic like grading or classroom management or work life balance and see every episode where I’ve done something related to that. One of the tabs is guest episodes and I love this because it puts every guest interview I’ve ever done there.

Rebecca Joyner [00:02:38]:
And 90 to 95% of the guest interviews I do are with full time high school science teachers. You know, there’s been a middle school science teacher here, there or like a counselor, someone who’s not in a high school science teaching role. But in general that’s who I interview. And every time, I’m pretty sure every guest I’ve asked what your cell phone policy is just because I’m curious. So if you want to listen to those bit ly because I wanted to make it a nice short link bit ly/ss podcast episodes, all lowercase SSS for secondary sign simplified podcast episodes. And then you can go to that guest tab and see all of those. Okay, so that’s going to give you a lot of different people’s opinions because you might find someone else has a more similar personality to you and so their cell phone policy works better for you and your personality. I think though, regardless of what you do and who you are, this all comes down to three things.

Rebecca Joyner [00:03:34]:
It comes down to what you care about, what you have the capacity to enforce, and if you have a school wide policy, you know, and how much your school is going to support you. Okay, so let’s talk through each of those. First, what you care about. Like, do cell phones bother you? That’s the first question. And I’m assuming since you clicked on this episode, they probably bother you. There’s no, like, moral right or wrongness here. I want to say if cell phones bother you versus they don’t. We all have things that we care about that other teachers don’t, and vice versa.

Rebecca Joyner [00:04:58]:
Like, for instance, I do not care about pencil sharpening. Like, it bothers me zero for a student to get up in the middle of my class and go sharpen a pencil. And some of you may be thinking, how are they even using, like, old school pencils? Well, I’ll tell you this. If students don’t come to class, like, a pen or mechanical pencil or whatever, I just always have, like, number two pencils and a beaker somewhere. And so they use those. But, like, I’m unfazed by that interruption of noise. Like, I don’t need them to wait for me to stop talking or ask permission. I’m like, go off.

Rebecca Joyner [00:05:29]:
I’ll just raise my voice. Like, I don’t care. Kind of same thing for the bathroom. Like, I don’t really care if you need to go to the bathroom. All I care about is, like, making sure if there was a fire, I know where everyone’s located. So my bathroom policy was so simple. I literally had at the corner of my whiteboard, like, the front right corner that was closest to the door. I just always had a marker right there and, like, a bathroom pass that was on, like, a little hook on the wall right there.

Rebecca Joyner [00:05:53]:
Like, I just put, like, a command hook, and there’s a little bathroom pass because they had to have one in the hall that hung there. And I was just like, hey, if you need to go to the bathroom and the bathroom pass is hanging there, you’re free to go. I just can only have one person out of the classroom at a time because I can’t keep up with more people being gone. And I just would have them jot their name on the board. So, right, like, Rebecca on the board, take the pass, go to the bathroom. When you come back, hang it back up, erase your name, go sit down. Then the next person who needs to go can get up and do it. Like, I’m not policing bathrooms.

Rebecca Joyner [00:06:21]:
I’m not making sure you only leave my room three times in a quarter. Like, I’m just, like, not doing that. But also the expectation is, like, if you choose to leave, you’re gonna have to, like, figure out what you miss when you get back. And it’s not My problem that you, you know, left and you miss the instructions. Now you’re confused, you know, So I just kind of was like, hands off with that, because I don’t care. But you may care, and that’s fine. So I want you to consider, like, anything that kind of triggers a reaction out of you. And I don’t mean, like, triggers in, like a.

Rebecca Joyner [00:06:49]:
A way that we use the term, like, psychologically talking about, like, counseling. I’m not saying you’re having, like, a trauma response. I just mean, like, in the sense of the word that, like, it causes. So like anything that causes a reaction out of you or a feeling of frustration or impatience or makes you want to roll your eyes or maybe say a sarcastic comment, if that’s your personality. Anything that gets a reaction out of you in your classroom, I believe needs a procedure. I think it’s a very helpful practice to list out, like, let me think through my day to day. What were all the different things that made me annoyed or made me angry at my students or maybe want to raise my voice or whatever. List all of those out, and then next to each one, come up with a procedure that then you can train your students in.

Rebecca Joyner [00:07:32]:
I have an entire lesson on this that I deep dive in my culture Virtual professional development course. It’s all about. I call it culture instead of classroom management because I genuinely think it’s not just about, like, managing people. It’s about creating a culture in your classroom. And I’m really passionate about this. So you can check that out. I’ll link it in the show notes. But again, if it bothers you, we need a procedure for it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:07:55]:
So if cell phones bother you, we need a procedure for it. If pencil sharpening bothers you, we need a procedure for it. If how your students clean up lab bothers you, then we need a procedure that they are going to have to clean up lab. Every time we do a lab. Okay? So we need a procedure for all the things we care about. Second, it matters the capacity that you have to enforce. What is your current capacity to enforce this? Because here is something I wish I could like, trademark. Okay? Cause this is like a sentence I’ve probably said 2,500 times on the Internet.

Rebecca Joyner [00:08:30]:
A procedure is only as effective as it is one, clearly communicated and two, consistently reinforced, it’s only as effective. So if you’re like, ugh, well, my lab cleanup procedure is just not effective. Okay, well, how clearly have you communicated it and how consistently have you reinforced this? And I saw this in my classroom, and I see this in my home. Like, I literally, y’ all had a conversation with my husband last night about a situation where I had been alone for several days. My children, he was out of town. And I was, like, getting angry about the same thing over and over. And it was one of my children not immediately obeying. So either waiting for me to ask this child to do something, three to four times, it looked like this child ignoring their siblings when their siblings were saying something to them.

Rebecca Joyner [00:09:26]:
Also, sometimes it wasn’t just like ignoring me or ignoring a sibling. It was arguing with me before obeying, which, again, I’m not like a dictator and expecting blind obedience in all things. But there are certain times, like, we’re in a public place, we’re in a street. You know, there are safety concerns. We’re like, I asked you to do something. It’s all the way right away with a cheerful heart. That’s kind of our family policy, family procedure, if you will. But I had been very bad about consistently reinforcing this, especially as, like, the school year started.

Rebecca Joyner [00:09:56]:
I gave a lot of grace on a lot of things. It was a big adjustment, like, of course. But then, you know, my husband had been traveling a lot more than normal, so I was alone a lot more. So there were just battles I didn’t want to fight, and I was just kind of, like, letting it go. And, like, I perpetuated the problem because I did not have the capacity to enforce the procedure. And so we had this, like, talk about it, because I did. I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want to be angered at my children.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:20]:
I don’t want to raise my voice to make them listen to me. And so we kind of had to do, like, a rewind and reteach, re. Clearly communicate to our children. The expectation is all the way right away with the cheerful heart that is a joiner family expectation for obedience. When we ask you to do something, and you know, mom and dad are never going to ask you to do something that we don’t think, like, you should do. And obviously, y’, all, there is a time and place for, like, questions, comments, concerns. But I’m just saying, like, this is a statement that transcends your classroom. Any human beings that you’re responsible for a procedure is only as effective as it is clearly communicated and consistently reinforced.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:58]:
So if you cannot do those things, it will not be effective, period. You can come up with the best cell phone policy ever. You can hear my policy in a little bit and say, I’m gonna do that. But if you don’t actually reinforce it consistently and hold the line, it’s gonna fail. That’s something to consider here. And thirdly, you’ve gotta consider if you have a school wide policy and or how much will the school support you. This is critical to assess. I think school wide policies can be incredibly effective.

Rebecca Joyner [00:11:31]:
I just think the consistency is so nice. It just feels so fair. Like everyone’s classroom, everyone’s doing it. Okay, I’m not the only one who’s, you know, fulfilling this requirement. But it’s only effective school wide if everyone’s on board. Again, consistent reinforcement and if the school supports you in it and the admin or, you know, the office staff at your school upholds their end of the bargain, whatever that may be with the implementation of it. I think a school wide policy can really be terrible. If they give you this policy but give you no support in execution and they just expect you to uphold it by yourself and then other teachers are like, well, I’m not going to do it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:12:14]:
And so then you’re the only one. And then it’s like, what are we even doing here? I do think though, if you don’t have a school wide policy, there’s potentially an opportunity here to ask your admin, like maybe in your next eval, like if you have quarterly evals or end of semester evals, just say, hey, like, I think this could be something that could serve all of us as teachers if we had a policy that you guys helped us implement so that we could all kind of fight this cell phone battle together. I would love to partner with you in that and that’s a way that your admin can support you for free. I feel like so often it feels like we’re always asking admin for money for lab supplies, for curriculum, you know, send us to some training, whatever. But there are so many ways our admin can support us for free and this is one of them. So it’s just something to consider. I will say too, like recently our actual school district, which is a very large geographic district, there’s a lot of schools, it’s 60 miles from like me to like another school in my district. It’s kind of crazy.

Rebecca Joyner [00:13:10]:
It’s a big geographical area in my opinion because we have all this water so you have to go around it. But like our whole district came up with a policy that they’ve implemented and they have clearly communicated it. Like I have a kindergartner and a second grader and I seen no less than 20 times some sort of correspondence from the School and district about this policy. So I feel like it’s being really clearly communicated. I think it’s cool that it’s district wide. So I think there’s an opportunity potentially here. So that might be something to consider because it could help you if they hold up there in the bargain. Now, all that to say, let’s talk now what has worked and what hasn’t worked for me.

Rebecca Joyner [00:13:46]:
Again, these are going to be two individual examples for you. If you want more examples of things you might want to choose to adopt for your classroom, check out the Bit ly sss podcast episodes. Go to that tab that has all the guest episodes and see what some of those other teachers have said. Start with episode 89 because I know for a fact we talked about this for a long time on that episode. So here is what has worked and what hasn’t. At one school I was at, the school I taught in most recently, there was a school wide policy and I appreciated that. Like I said, it was consistent. The policy was no phones allowed in the classroom unless the teacher is like, get out your phone because we’re researching something.

Rebecca Joyner [00:14:28]:
Okay? But the overall default was no phones out. Not in classrooms, not in hallways, nothing. The only place they were allowed to have their phones out was at lunch, which I thought was a nice compromise because that kind of helped with the parents who were like, I have to be have access to my child 24 hours a day. It also helped with students being like, if they felt anxious about like a social situation, they’re like, I gotta go to the bathroom and check my phone. It’s like, you’re gonna have a chance at lunch. Just check your phone. Then I also just think it’s great because I just think it’s so good for all of us to be unplugged in parts of our lives. So I, I thought it was excellent.

Rebecca Joyner [00:15:02]:
We’re basically just asking students to take two, three hour breaks essentially from their phone in the day. That’s not that much. So school eye palsy. No phones in classes, no phones in hallways, bathrooms, whatever. If a teacher saw a phone, there was a no warning system. It was like, you see it, you collect it and it would go down to the front office. So this was kind of annoying because you would have to go between classes, like during the class change and run it down to the office, but then the office processed it from there. So they sent like the notification out to the parents and they kept track if this was like the first, second or third offense or whatever.

Rebecca Joyner [00:15:42]:
And then there was like all this stuff that the school had come up with that they did. So again, everyone was on the same page and everyone had their own part to play. Like, yes, I had to personally deliver the phone, and I couldn’t send a student to deliver it because they said it was like a liability issue for the people’s property. But if I could just get the phone down to admin, I knew from there the office staff at the front desk, like, she was going to handle it, and it was just not my problem anymore. Absolutely loved that. Okay. Now, prior to that, I was at a different school, and it was kind of like to each their own. Like, you just kind of handle it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:16:17]:
It was a much larger school. This was a large public school I was in. The previous one I mentioned was a private school. At the large public school, though, there was a lot of stuff going on and there was a lot of people, and they were like, we can’t be collecting cell phones and contacting. Like, we’re not doing that. So you need to manage this in your classroom, at the classroom level. Okay. So I tried and failed to collect them at the front of the classroom as they walked in.

Rebecca Joyner [00:16:42]:
I had heard from so many other teachers that, okay, get one of those little shoe caddies. Which I did, and I numbered them and then I hung it up. I’m sure there’s a picture of my blog post from, like, 2017 where I showed this. I would have them turn their phone in as they came in. They walked in, they set their phone in the pouch, and then I was going to take attendance based on whose phones were in there. Now, here’s the problem. It comes back to number two. What do you have the capacity to enforce? I did not have the capacity for it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:17:13]:
For me, when the class is starting, I’m focused on getting the prime time up, getting their primetime sheets out, which we’re going to talk about prime times next week. I’m doing a deep dive into prime times. Any question you’ve ever had about prime times is going to get answered, but I’m doing that. And then once they’re working on their primetime, I’m taking attendance. I’m getting things ready for the day. Like, it’s easier for me to look around at my seating chart than to look at the cell phone caddy. Also, students would be like, well, oh, I’m here, but I didn’t turn in my phone cause I’m grounded from it. Or they would literally have, like a burner phone that they would throw in.

Rebecca Joyner [00:17:43]:
I mean, it was insane. And so then they’re shouting at me during the primetime time that I’m here, like, don’t miss me. Ajaya’s here. I just don’t have a phone right now. And I’m just like, okay, stop. Like, don’t talk to me. It just was like, I can’t handle that. So that was a fail for me.

Rebecca Joyner [00:17:58]:
What I did find effective after that is I had a policy that was, if I see it, I take it that is the rule. So, like, if you can be super sneaky and hide it from me, then, like, power to you. But, like, if I see it, I’m just gonna take it. And I. I would be humorous in it. Like, a lot of times I could maybe make a joke, like, what you doing with those hands on your desk? Or, like, I would just say, hands up. And everyone had to lift their hands to see, like, if they’re playing with something under their desk or not. But that was just kind of how I handled it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:18:31]:
And then if I saw it and I took it, I had a filing cabinet towards the front of my classroom, so it was kind of higher up. And I would just set the phone on top of there so they could see it. I put like, a piece of cloth, or you can put like a. Like a rubber or, like, foam mat that you would, like, put dishes on to dry. You can put that up there in case it’s vibrating. So it’s not as loud. Cause the filing cabinet can be pretty loud. But that way students have their eyes on it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:18:54]:
I found that I had some pretty rough students that did not, like, if it was like, put in my desk or something, you know, but this way they can see it, and then they just grab it on the way out. And it was just kind of like, hey, I’m just like, I just am not going to deal with this. So we’re just going to put it up here. You can see it. You grab it on the way out. That’s it. In a story, if it’s consistently becoming a problem. And it feels like every day or every week I’m having to do this.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:14]:
Like, I’m obviously going to reach out to your parents, say, hey, the phone’s becoming a problem. But it just wasn’t a battle that I was going to expend a lot of energy fighting. Again, I care about phones, but not enough to spend a lot of time fighting it. So that, to me, was a solution that really worked. But here’s what I think. Regardless of your cell phone policy that you choose, is the most effective way to Deal with cell phones. Are you ready? I think what works best is keeping students so busy in your class. Always doing something intentional with them so they know it’s not just busy work.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:46]:
Like, we’re actually doing legit stuff every day that they didn’t have time to look at their phones. Like, there was just no time because we’re doing stuff. That’s why the bathroom was never really a big problem for me. Like, my students didn’t really want to go to the bathroom in my class because they knew they were going to miss something. They’re like, they’ll save their bathroom breaks for another class where they’re not doing as much. So I think really keeping them going is really important. Episode 92 is all about having precise pacing and tight transitions. It was an episode I did in a classroom management series.

Rebecca Joyner [00:20:16]:
And y’, all, I mean, I cannot tell you how much of a difference that makes. When your class is moving. There just isn’t that downtime. Now, of course you’re thinking, well, what do you do then? When they’re doing independent work, you watch them like a hawk. You’re monitoring, you’re walking around. Like, if you’re. If you’re trying to get stuff graded during that time, that’s not really the time. The only thing I would ever really grade during class was prime times.

Rebecca Joyner [00:20:41]:
And I can grade a set of 30 prime times in under five minutes. So I can just break that into chunks and do it in one minute increments. And even while I’m doing that, my answers are so easy to grade on the prime times that I’m still listening, I’m still looking around, I’m glancing. Like, they. They just know that, like, I’m never not there. And I just think we disconnect in our class periods more than we think we do. And they take advantage of every time that we do. So watching them like a hawk is critical.

Rebecca Joyner [00:21:08]:
The other thing I’ll say that I think is really effective is not just keeping them super busy. Cause again, it’s not just to, like, rush them or overwhelm them. But another thing I think I’ve found really effective in just my classroom management as a whole is not assigning homework. Episode 96 is all about why I stopped assigning homework. And it really, like, changed my entire class culture. But what I found was it was really like a bargaining chip. I would tell students at the beginning of the year, I will not assign homework in this class. Everything I ask you to do, there will be time built in class for you to do.

Rebecca Joyner [00:21:43]:
It the only thing you’ll be expected to do is come in for tutoring if you need extra help and study for your test, which I will give you so much time in advance to know when they are. But because of that, that means this class time I have with you, this 50 minutes is my time. So I am going to protect my time in here so that you can have your time outside of here. And if you choose to use some of my time for your personal time, then I’m gonna take some of your personal time outside of school as my time for my work. And so that really was effective with students. Like, if you’re getting on your phone and you’re spending your five minutes on your phone in my class, okay, well, now you’re gonna have to do my work outside of school because you didn’t do it now when I asked you to do it. So I think that’s another way to really kind of maybe have a shift in your culture that’ll motivate them to not be on their phone as much because you’re saying, hey, I’m gonna give you all the time you need to do these things. But if you’re gonna was, then you’re not going to get it done and then you will have to have homework.

Rebecca Joyner [00:22:42]:
So that’s something to consider too. Last thing I’ll say is this. Obviously you’re going to have opportunities where they’re going to need to, like, use their phone to maybe look up a video or read an article or conduct research. Like, those are things that are going to happen and they’re going to probably get, like, notifications and things like that during that time. I would really encourage your students, say, teach them how, especially if they have an iPhone. I’m sure you can do this on Android. But show them how to turn on the work filter, because during this filter, it will make sure, like, it doesn’t give you any text notifications or phone notifications or anything like that. But you can still, you know, use Safari, use YouTube to look up the video masking and do that kind of thing, but you’re not going to be getting those notifications.

Rebecca Joyner [00:23:22]:
And like, that’s a good life skill to have. Like, that’s something that I have to use because I get distracted by my phone too. So seeing that as an opportunity, like, yeah, you’re not going to be able to perfectly police them when you give allow them to have their phones when they’re researching for a project, but trying to help them use their phones in a healthy way, I think is a, is a good thing that we can do for them. It’s a life skill that they’re gonna need to have. It’s something that I’m still working on as an adult. So of course they’re gonna need help doing as 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 year olds. Okay, so here’s your take home challenge for today. First, consider what bothers you most about phones.

Rebecca Joyner [00:23:57]:
Cause remember, we’re gonna start with what we care about and then second, write a procedure or make a plan that you can clearly communicate and consistently reinforce here. And if there’s an opportunity to make this a school wide thing, maybe consider that that could be a way that your admin can care for you and other teachers. Maybe not. You know your school’s vibe. You know how well your school actually does school wide things like uniform policies or whatever. And so you might know that that’s kind of a lost cause and this is something you need to deal with on your own. And if so, consider again what will bother you most and what will you have the energy to actually enforce and go from there. And if you need more ideas and check out that bit ly sss podcast episodes and go to the guest episodes tab and you can hear from other teachers what they do.

Rebecca Joyner [00:24:44]:
And I’ll also post on social media this week on my Instagram at It’s not rocketscience. I’ll post something and say like, hey, share your cell phone policy that you do and maybe we can kind of crowdsource some ideas too, just so you can hear from other people. Because I do think that is helpful. So I mentioned a lot of other podcast episodes, like why I stopped assigning homework in episode 96 and precise pacing and tight transitions in episode 92. So all of those are linked in the show notes at it’s not rocket scienceclassroom.com episode 205 and if you haven’t left a review today, I would love it if you would do that. Especially if this is the first time you’ve ever heard me say that.

Rebecca Joyner [00:25:25]:
A procedure is only as effective as it is clearly communicated and consistently reinforced. If that’s the first time you’ve heard me say that, I would love it if you’d leave a review today. All right, teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to itsnotrocketscienceclassroom.com challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge and guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in. And I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you, teacher friend.