Sebastian Garcia Gaytan

A group of juniors play “Clash Royale” on their phones during lunch. Lunch is the only time when phones are allowed to be out. “I think once we adapt to it, it’s not going to be something we miss because [for] everyone moving forward, that’ll have been the policy [since] middle school,” DNA science and biology teacher Aubrie Holman said.

Starting in the 2025-2026 school year, all Virginia schools, including Jefferson, must implement new standardized cell phone restrictions. No more cell phones in the hallways during passing periods, in the classroom as instructional tools or as a means of communication with parents during the school day. 

The new policy transforms the classroom as much as it changes the daily habits of students. With many other distractions in daily school life, the removal of phones makes maintaining students’ focus just a little bit easier. 

“It’s great to use [cell phones] when they’re used appropriately by students, but I think we’ve all experienced how hard it can be to have a phone buzzing and feel that urge to pick it up,” DNA science and biology teacher Aubrie Holman said. “You pick it up to do one thing, and immediately you’re sucked into six other things. It [is] another distraction in a high school full of distractions.” 

With cell phones out of students’ pockets, teachers don’t have to worry about constantly checking to make sure their students are on task.

“It’s easier to see a laptop screen open and ask people to close it than to monitor a whole room for somebody feeling that buzz in their pocket,” Holman said. “They were fully paying attention and now suddenly they’re not [fully] paying attention.” 

However, removing cell phones from the classroom also removes a tool teachers once used to enhance their students’ learning experiences. Without cell phones, teachers must find a solution that incurs using older technology or spending more money. 

“We’re having to find some workarounds for things that we used to just say, ‘hey, take a picture of this quickly, pull out your phone,’” Holman said. “I just discovered about 10 minutes ago, a stash of cameras that I used to use for a middle school program, so I’m going to be pulling those into DNA science. They’re at least a decade old, so we’ll see if they work.”

Virginia’s cell phone policy offers zero leeway on how phones can be used in the classroom, even if just using the camera feature. 

“Do you know how long it’s been since the old days [when] we set up stationary cameras and [watched] change in position versus change in time [and] did calculations that way?” principal Michael Mukai said. “We’re going to have to go back to that.” 

Spending time and resources to find solutions for the lack of cell phones in the classroom could cause Jefferson to lag behind other technology embracing schools. 

“Think about the opportunities as new technologies come along that can forward the progress of what we can do,” Mukai said. “Do we want to be the last one to move forward? I’m worried for us in terms of preserving access to information and the opportunity to do more.”

Additionally, prohibiting students from keeping their phones with them inside the classroom takes away a means of communication that could be used to call for help.

“They’ve gotten really serious about security, and so they’re stressing that there is a danger there,” junior Nathalie Hatchuel said. “But they also don’t want us to have our phones, which would allow us to call for help. [The phone policy and the new security measures] are both from [Virginia] so the people from the school don’t really have a choice for that.”

Though the policy tackles cell phones in a standardized way, there should be room for conversation about how we as a school can improve the policy and conform it to our school community.

“If two kids sat across the room from each other with two tin cans tied together with a string and talked to each other, they’re not breaking the cell phone rule, but would it be a distraction? Absolutely,” Mukai said. “There’s got to be a way for us to have those discussions and for there to be greater clarity and collaboration between the ones with technology and those who are making the rules, to make sure that they understand the benefits.”

The Jefferson community has the same shared goals that drive us forward. With more communication between administration, teachers and students, a better solution to creating a more focused school environment can be found. 

“I think that [Jefferson students] are thoughtful enough to think that [they] don’t want those distractions in [their] school as well,” Mukai said. “I want to be that school that does the best for our kids, for our students and does the right things for them. My hope for future generations is that we know that we’ve found a way to do better, we found a way to overcome the distraction in pursuit of our learning that we at Jefferson really value.”