This year, the Middle School administration created a “threshold policy” to establish a boundary for when students can and cannot have their cell phones. This policy states that students must place their phones in their backpacks immediately when entering the building and phones can only be taken out after students exit the building at the end of the day.
With this new policy, the Middle School administration did not intend to limit the possibilities of technology but hoped to encourage more interactions between students before, after, and during the school day.
Despite widespread outcry, the rule has remained in place, confusing many students. “Why did you decide to keep the threshold policy?” 8th grader Brynn Kim asks.
Middle School Dean Walter DuPriest points out that while the threshold policy is new this year, it simply clarifies the longstanding rule against having phones out during the school day. “You’ve never been allowed to cruise through the middle of the building with your phone on your shoulder,” he says. DuPriest notes that the threshold policy allows room for error, as students occasionally have their phones out in the building at the end of the day. “Even with the threshold rule, every once in a while, somebody will have it out during study hall at the end of the day. Somebody will have it out in the locker commons, in the middle of the day.”
Assistant Head of Middle School Vielka Reina believes that the threshold policy can yet be improved. “I think because we’re in it this year and it’s new, it feels very much permanent,” she says. “But just as the dress code was quite different, you know, ten years ago than right now, I do think that there’s room for making change.”
8th-grade girls’ grade chair Catherine Zidow believes 6th and 7th graders adapt more easily to this new rule than 8th graders, who face more challenges with the change. “I think especially for the younger kids who don’t know anything else, it’s been really successful. Like, we don’t see any phones for 6th and most 7th graders,” she says. “For 8th grade as it is, you guys were used to the difference, last year. So it’s always harder for 8th graders to change, especially when the rule didn’t come from you.” Zidow also believes that in a few years the rule will be adopted and accepted by all grades.“In two years, I think it’ll be a big culture difference for us so that kids know that when you walk in, your job is to just be with people,” she says.
While the Middle School debates its phone policies, the discussion has extended beyond Clarkson Hall’s walls. Parents in the Lower School have advised other parents to wait on purchasing a cellphone until middle school. Reina feels this idea will not be extended to the Middle School as it should now be up to each family because every family has different needs. “I think every family has different needs. The family structures are different also,” she says. “There are students who live in shared custody kind of situations where they they might need that phone. And so I don’t think putting a blanket recommendation or rule to parents on what they should or shouldn’t buy their children when we all aren’t living that same experience.”
8th grader Hannah Sauerteig raises a practical concern about the new policy: “How are we supposed to get our phones to our lockers?” she asks.
Head of the Middle School Leslie Ann Little strongly believes that the new threshold policy never aimed to make the previous phone rule stricter, just clearer. Under the previous rule, students could have their phones out until the 7:55 bell at the beginning of the day and after the 3:10 bell at the end of the day, but the new policy simply provides clarity on the boundaries for phones in Clarkson Hall. “I think for me, it is clarifying the rule, removing the distraction, and sort of learning good boundaries around cell phone use,” she says. “It wasn’t an effort to be severe or stern or any of those kinds of things. It was really about clarity.”
7th grader Sophie Shih points out that the threshold policy creates more challenges at dismissal time than in the morning. She explains that students need their phones after school to coordinate pick-up locations, noting that without phone access, students might walk to the wrong location and have to backtrack across campus. “At the beginning of the day, it’s [the policy] is okay because your phone is not needed. But at the end of the day, you don’t wanna go all the way up to Upper Clarkson and then walk back down to Lower Clarkson and then all the way to the Lower School,” she says.
8th-grade boys grade chair Patrick Egan believes even though these communications are important, students can contact their parents outside of the building, “We’re not trying to prevent students from reaching out to a parent, but at the same point, do so outside of the building,” he says. Egan also believes that teachers and administrators strongly encourage communication, but students need to respect and follow the boundaries set. “We really just wanna make this place about learning, and really just to try to establish boundaries. If you’re in the building and this that’s what the threshold is,” he says. “It’s a clear boundary of we don’t want phones here, and it’s not because we wanna prevent communication. But, you know, if you need to communicate, your email is certainly available to do so.”
Middle School Dean James Jessup appreciates that students do very well with putting phones away in the morning, but could work on keeping them in backpacks after school. “I think students are great with it coming into the building, I noticed,” he says. “I see very few phones when people are coming in. I think the bigger challenge is when people are leaving. They pull [phones out]. . . by natural habit.” However, Jessup believes that students typically have a good reason to have phones out. “You know, there’s usually, for most people, a legitimate reason, but it does cause confusion from a dean’s perspective or from a teacher’s perspective because we don’t know what you’re doing on it.”