Students and faculty have mixed feelings about the school's cell phone policy. However, they may have no say, as phones could potentially get a statewide ban in schools.

As of November 2024, eight states have passed laws that ban or restrict cell phone use in schools. Vermont is looking to add to that, as Senate Bill 21 moves forward. 

Senate Bill 21(SB21) would prohibit the use of cell phones in any public schools, independent schools, career and technical centers and pre-qualified private prekindergartens. The bill notes that one of the main reasons for this ban is to support mental health. According to the Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 63-percent of high school students said that their mental health is sometimes to always “not good”. 

Though there is evidence to support this claim, a lot of Proctor students feel differently. 

“The problem is more deeply rooted,”  Senior Colby Martin says. "We're treating the symptom and not the disease,” he adds about the idea of banning phones. Martin feels that whether we have phones or not, it's not going to change the kids who aren’t interested in completing work. “Administration blames phones as a coping mechanism for the fact that kids are just uninterested in doing work,” he says. 

Principal McLemore disagrees. “People rush through projects,” she says. “I can’t force you to learn but I can encourage it,” she adds, explaining that phones are a distraction. 

Eighth grader Tyler Harrington is frustrated with the current cell phone policy. “Some teachers won’t even let you have them out during passing time…There are some kids who can do work at the same time,” he says about phones in the classroom. 

Fellow classmate Liam Jones, on the other hand, supports the no cell phone policy, “It will probably help kids learn.” 

According to SB21, Lamoille South Supervisory Union in Vermont implemented a phone-free school day policy in August 2024. Data from their high school shows that hazing, harassing and bullying claims have gone down significantly. They had nine claims from October 2023 to when it was implemented. After it was implemented, they only experienced two in the same period of time. 

Phones have always been a hot topic when it comes to school participation and education, especially with students.

Some students think there shouldn’t be any phone policies, while others believe the policies should be more strict or that there should be an absolute ban on phones during school hours. 

“Everyone was so glued to their phones,” Senior Jarrett Patch says, referring to before the recent cell phone policy was put in place at Proctor. Although Jarrett thinks the policy that bans phones during classes has helped students be more on course, he feels phones are not necessarily the reason students aren’t participating in class. “It’s the kids' mentality, you can take their phones but it may still not influence them to get an education,” he says. 

Most of the students' feedback was relatively similar, but not all.

Senior Roy Gee thinks the current policy is too lenient. He also believes people often don’t follow them, “Our phone plans are not working. During DEAR,  (Drop Everything And Read) people are on their phones.”

Some students argued that if work is completed, then they should be allowed to use their phones.

Social Studies Teacher Mr. Hill is in support of the potential state ban noting that the fact that the state is considering a ban shows that there is a problem. “Having the answer to everything in your pocket discourages students from actually learning,” he says, adding that. “People having access to you at all times is not always a good thing.”

Whether or not we agree with the phone policies, we may have to accept them if SB21 becomes law.