In an email on July 31, High School Principal Yom Fox and Head of School Russell Shaw announced a new cell phone policy, banning phone use on campus from 8:00 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Students have met the ban with mixed reactions, some lamenting the lost sense of freedom in the high school while others anticipated an increase in social and physical activities at GDS.
The phone ban, reportedly designed to cultivate community and mental well-being, has sparked debate over how the school’s culture meshes with the administration’s new policy.
“The Forum on the first day of classes was beautiful; the senior corner was loud because people were talking. This place used to be a much louder place,” said Director of Student Community Programming Bobby Asher. “I think technology is great, just not when it gets in the way of talking to your friends.”
Seven of the eleven students interviewed by the Bit were against the new ban.
On August 4, Shaw wrote an article in The Atlantic supporting phone bans in schools. He described a host of activities and liveliness that took place in the Forum ten years ago that were “crowded out by students looking at their phones.”
“Whenever we are doing work at Georgetown Day School that we think other learning communities could benefit from, it is worth sharing,” Shaw told the Bit.
“We [administrators] started discussing the research around phone use in schools last fall,” Shaw told the Bit. He emphasized the school’s focus on building community and improving mental health, citing rising concerns about how phones affect attention. “The attention needed to wrestle with complex ideas gets disturbed by phones,” Shaw added.
Fox could not be reached for comment before publication of this article.
Tenth Grade Dean Greg Dallinger said he has noticed an increase in phone usage over the last few years.
“We have a teen mental health crisis, and there is a strong connection to teen social media use,” said Asher. Asher teaches a neuroscience class that includes lessons on the effects of phone usage.
Both Shaw and Asher said that banning phones would not solve the nation’s youth mental health crisis, but they saw the policy as one of the many ways GDS should address the crisis.
Dallinger said he is hoping to enrich students’ experiences at GDS by enforcing the phone policy. “I am looking at enforcing the policy as an educative process, not a punitive process,” he said.
History Teacher Topher Dunne said he was more likely to talk to students about phone use during class than to confiscate the devices in the hallways and Forum.
A FAQ page linked to the email announcing the new phone policy outlined the consequences for repeated violations of the ban. Consequences include official student updates, students being mandated to turn in their phones to the high school office, loss of off-campus privileges and an appearance before the Disciplinary Consultation Committee (DCC).
Dunne told the Bit that there was not yet a way to track the number of infractions by students, but he anticipated a system would come after September.
Three DCC members, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not permitted to talk about the committee, discussed how they would handle a phone policy case should it come before them.
“I don’t even know how I would begin to approach a phone case,” one DCC member said. “We are trained to decide a consequence based on how the student’s actions impacted the community. How is anyone going to argue that pulling out your phone disrupts the community? I would advocate on the extremely lenient side of punishment.”
Two DCC members feared that the faculty on the committee would advocate for stricter punishments in phone cases. “Teachers, in general, tend to advocate for harsher punishments in the DCC,” one member said.
All three members said they would enforce the policy regardless of whether they agreed with it. “We’re not the policymakers, we’re the executioners,” one said.
Asher told the Bit he has supported a high school phone ban for six years. “What I had been noticing anecdotally for years was now the subject of scientific research,” Asher said, referring to advisories from United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in 2021 and 2023. The advisories highlight the growing youth mental health crisis, exacerbated by social media use, and call for a collective effort from policymakers, tech companies and families to mitigate social media’s negative effects on teens.
History teacher Sue Ikenberry agreed with the policy but thought the school should have suggested that students read Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation prior to the school year. “I think what would have happened is that the policy would have come from the kids, rather than it seeming imposed,” Ikenberry said.
“The negative feedback is more about student involvement,” Asher said “I think that is being answered by saying ‘We are trying something out and we have got to do this.’”
The book examines how smartphones have transformed modern life and increased mental health issues. Ikenberry thought many students would agree with banning phones after reading Haidt’s book. Ikenberry, Asher and Shaw all told the Bit they were influenced by Haidt’s work.
Michael Dobbs, a senior SSC representative, said that the SSC had not been consulted before the policy was announced. “I was shocked they didn’t give us any warning and just dumped it on us,” he said. According to Dobbs, the SSC was not consulted about the announcement or implementation of the policy.
“You are eventually going to have to use your phones one day, and high school is the area of your education where you are meant to branch out and learn how to be an adult,” junior Alexander Bobo said. “GDS is a school where we have a lot of freedom. It makes no sense to limit the use of our phones.”
In The Atlantic, Shaw wrote, “Some people argue that phones prepare students for the pressures of our digital world, one they’ll eventually have to navigate anyway. Even if this is true and I am not sure it is, it is an unintentional aftereffect that happens at the expense of building community.”
Sophomore Deniz Yaveroglu thought not having his phone would make him “go outside more, do more physical activities and socialize.”
Asher said he has heard significantly more positive than negative feedback.
“There were some students and parents who said that they disagreed; however, the vast majority of feedback we got was supportive,” Shaw said. “My hope is that our students will work in good faith to abide by this community norm.”