Local schools go tech-free to limit phone distraction
In a trend sweeping the nation and causing looming dread among students, several local private schools have made the decision to ban the use of cell phones on their campuses. This conversation is one that Newbury Park and surrounding CVUSD public schools have started to have, but have not made any proactive motions towards officially switching over. Until Governor Gavin Newsom officially signs the law to legally pass this implementation, Newbury Park sees no immediate future in this structure.
One of the schools that has made this decision is local private school Oaks Christian [OCHS], whose high school is following suit of their middle school, which has been phone-free since its beginning. The change was implemented this school year after being announced in June.
While the parent feedback has been generally positive, students have had a harder time adjusting to the change. Harper Morrow, junior at OCHS, feels that the change has many students feeling a “cold turkey” effect due to the sudden turnaround. “I think we understand what they’re trying to do, but the way that they’ve gone about it was not the right way. They should have started off slower and kind of eased into it,” Harper Morrow said.
Despite the minimal withdrawal some students have experienced, students like Milo Schaffer, another junior at OCHS, have also observed a sense of community inspired by the common struggle of going without phones. “It’s kind of like trauma bonding, where everybody’s like, ‘This all sucks’. It’s like a hard AP class for everybody,” Schaffer said. Now that phones are not an option during breaks and passing periods, the tendency for being antisocial has diminished. “You have friendships based more on people to people,” Schaffer said.
From a staff perspective, the shift has been more positive and panned out as well as they could have hoped. Tara and Jeff Morrow, Oaks Christian Middle School Principal and Head of College Counseling, respectively, found that one of their primary concerns from parents and students alike was the inability of students to reach their parents during school hours without access to their phones. “Actually, we’re finding that that’s part of the problem is a parents’ need to be in constant communication with their child as part of what’s causing some of the anxiety and some worry, and you just don’t need that,” Tara Morrow said.
One of the most prominent elements of the decision that the administration has had to consider is the navigation of a policy regarding a level of technology that was never present during their own education or even training to work in the school system. “We have to be vigilant about keeping up with research. And you always have to recognize that if you’re only using your own frame of reference to try to understand something current, then you’re lost. You’re already lost,” Jeff Morrow said.
Another school that has taken on this reform is Grace Brethren, a private middle and high school located in Simi Valley. Students feel that rather than constructing an entirely new disciplinary outline for the management of cell phones, personal responsibility is a sufficient method of control.
Sofia Sforzini, junior at Grace Brethren, stated she and her peers alike feel this way. “I don’t think it was of any help to make this rule and many of my friends could agree. I would be able to regulate myself and only use it when it’s needed. That’s what I honestly did in the first place,” Sforzini said. Sforzini argues that the only problems presented with phones is the misuse of them during class time, which can be taken care of on a class-to-class basis. The rest has no effect on learning and academic achievement. “That is just determined by someone’s own habits and attentiveness,” Sforzini said.
As a whole, the nationwide cell phone sweep has been met with a variety of responses and dichotomy, which aligns with the uncertainty surrounding such a vast and complex issue. It is extremely possible that CVUSD will follow suit with a similar reform very soon, and NPHS can expect to see similar feedback from our own community.
