Next semester, Bell High School is implementing a voluntary ban on cell phones to improve students’ learning and focus. The recent talk on phone bans has heightened after the announcement  from Gavin Newsom, wanting to push unified school districts on restriction of cell phone usage during school hours. While some students are upset and outraged about the decision, others see the potential benefits this ban might apply. The policy raises important questions,  how will this work? Will students be allowed to bring their phones to school? If so, will we keep them in our backpacks? Lockers? Or pouches? Will we be allowed to use our cell phones during our break and lunch? The questions stack on. 

Interview with Mrs. Kimura. Alphas Government and Economics Teacher 

  Question: What do you expect for next semester with the phone ban? 

Lee Kimura: “so expect that there’s going to be a lot of reminding basically the students in the class and in the hallway, because even if it’s in the bag, a lot of them will try to take it out of the bag or try not to put it in the bag in the first place so that I do expect that yeah. I’ll be asking kids to give me their phones after not the first week, that’d be more like the second first week is like reminding them letting them know about you’re repeating things basically. The second week would be, “okay Now I’ve already done this, now we’re going to be calling your parents” and then I think it’s calling your parents and I have to verify because they were supposed to give us the steps and then that Admin or Rj, or somebody might take away the phone and call the parent from their phone; and then hopefully I feel like 75% to 80% of the kids will probably be fine, not happy, but fine. You know they’ll be able to know they’ll be able to not have their phones on them and do the work and I expect them to not all of them, not all but some of them are pretty good at focusing anyways, but maybe like 30 to 40%, we’ll see.”

Question: What was the teacher’s survey on the phone ban about?

Lee Kimura: “Basically it’s like what device or how we’re going to do this. so there are 2 types of pouches, one was like a signal blocker, basically, and then the other 1 was like a magnetic locked pouch. there was a cabinet, and like the ones with just the pockets. The problem with the cabinet and the pockets is those only at 36 and my fourth period is 39 kids so I don’t have the biggest classes, but there are some other teachers who have like 4041, so they would run into an issue with not having enough. When most people I talked to didn’t pick those just because the time it would require to like put them in and then at the beginning of your class and then take them out at the end of class. so I suspect one of the pouches is probably going to be the option. Realistically they’re not going to come in for January, so we are going to end up doing the backpack part of it where you just turn it off and you put it in your backpack, this kind of works at least for short periods of timing.”

Question: Were there any teachers against the phone ban? 

Lee Kimura: “So I’m at the local school leadership council, which is the group that kind of discussed it and discussed what the process would be. we’re the ones that have to approve, like which thing the school is going to purchase. The principal is there too and based on the people I’ve talked to, No. I think a lot of people are a little like…. They may not necessarily want to get involved with enforcing it during break. The passing period is a little bit easier because that’s just moving from one class to another. But like the break and the lunch park, I don’t know if people…. you know, they’re just kind of like “I’m glad I’m not supervising. It’s not our problem”, you would have to ask the TA’s though, because they’re the ones who would supervise for that.”