One Year in With a Shitty Phone Policy

So it goes.

There will be copious cursing. You have been warned.

“You’re the only teacher I have that takes up phones.”

“Mr. Brady, I’ve never turned my phone in all semester, and you never noticed.”¹

- Actual goddamn things that actual goddamn students of mine said to my actual goddamn unsurprised face towards the end of the year in my Honors Chemistry classes.

I’m frustrated².

We’ve reached the end of May, which means we’re done with the 2024-2025 school year. So let’s take a minute to look back on how things have gone with the phone policy my district instituted at the start of the year, after delays, revisions, and finally, self-congratulatory back-pats and photo ops.

Oh, and if this is the first time we’re meeting, hello. My name is Matt Brady. I’m a high school science teacher at the top-ranked school in a below-average district in a state that ranks among the lowest in public education. Also, you probably don’t want to start with this installment — it’ll be like coming in mid-way through a movie where (I hope) you’ve realized the plucky heroes are going to win in the end. I’ve been fighting for my school and my district to go bell-to-bell phone-free for a while now, with pretty much nothing to show for it. You may want to start back here³.

Here’s what I learned working one year under a shitty phone policy:

I’m a Prophet, Whee!

And we all know what happens to prophets who are still talking past the time they should’ve known to shut up…

Like me, John the Baptist worked under at-will conditions. Leemage/Corbis/Getty Images

Anyway, as the curmudgeony, phone doom-sayer of my school, I’ve had more than a few people tell me that, even though they may hate to admit it, I was right back in August (and most of last summer). That was when our district leaders congratulated themselves on what a progressive, forward-looking, "we’re doing it for the kids!” phone policy they created, and teachers rolled their eyes so hard they fell out of our heads.

Why?

I went into detail here, in the section that starts with “It’s Unenforceable.” The short version? Everything I said happened. The long version?

Almost to the day I said it would happen, it happened.

Some highlights:

• In August, we were informed of the new cell phone policy by the admins. We were told to focus on our classrooms, and they will enforce this in the halls.
  
  For non-teachers, your teacher friends are laughing right now. We all start the year with the best of intentions to follow everything — every new policy, rule, and guideline — and by October, we’re lucky if we’re managing 25%. No shade on admins, but they had their own fires to put out⁴.
  
  Every teacher you know will tell you that if you see your school’s full complement of administrators on one day (not because they’ve gathered to escort you from the building), you’re like Ash Ketchum finding Porygon, a Crystal Onix, a Mew, and an Arceus on one adventure.⁵

  

  Porygon, or “What happens when Pokémon designers get really, really tired working their 48-hour days.” And yeah, considering that in two dimensions, this beast is made of polygons, that name feels kind of racist, given its Asian origins.

  Suffice it to say, it’s rare. Admins were largely ineffective in enforcing the policy in the halls⁶.

• Speaking of halls, yeah — during your planning period, you would spot it all the time. Kids in the hall with their phones out, earbuds in. Did I stop each kid and demand their name and classroom, and then follow them back? No⁷. Most often, they were headed into the restroom with their phone out. Okay, 1) ick and 2) germs, and also, see comments back there about no one being the bathroom cell phone police. Hopefully, they weren’t vaping.
  
  But here’s the thing: if this happened, a kid leaves the room on a Smart Pass (our Big Brother “we know who’s peeing and when” tracking tool) and pulls out their phone, the teacher, hypothetically, has done nothing wrong. The phone could have been out of sight during the instructional time the student just left, and that could mean in their pocket. Once outside of the classroom, bazinga. We’re back on TikTok.

• Since kids were allowed to have unrestricted use of phones in the halls, the majority would come into my classroom actively on their phones, texting, scrolling, watching a new episode of (I hoped) anime. I would tell them to bring their phones up and put them in the rack, and most would (see below).
  
  But then, the second we were done for the day⁸, zoom! right to the rack and grab their phones and go back on them. And then out into the halls on them, where no one will be checking.
  
  Technically, it’s not instructional time, and honestly, I was thankful for the breather, but…yeah. They’re addicted. Let me say that for parents and any adults who haven’t gotten the message yet:
  
  Kids are addicted to their phones⁹. Physically and emotionally.
  
  We’ll come back to this reality in a little bit.

• See above, but some kids never turned in their phones. Part of that is on me, because I wanted to get moving with class, so I wasn’t one of those (few) teachers who took attendance by counting phones. There were good days when most phones would be up front and bad days, even towards the end of the semester, when if I didn’t remind my kids, they wouldn’t voluntarily put them in the rack.

  
  And, to remind, collecting phones in high school classes was not part of the policy. The phones were to be put away during instructional time — out of sight: backpacks, pockets, somewhere.

• I got into teaching to help people, not be an asshole¹⁰. Occasionally, I would get the “Can I use my phone to call my Dad and let him know that I’m staying for tutoring today?” and other reasons for calling or responding to a parent’s text. Again, my weird desire not to be a total asshole took over, and yes. They could.
  
  This wasn’t a major one, but it did happen. And to the “send them to the front office — they have a phone,” crowd: our school is physically large - I know this from measuring for physics; from my room to the front office is approximately 0.25 km. Seriously. That’s a good ten minutes (speedwalking and calling quickly) or more likely twenty (walking like teenagers do) that they’re out of my class and not learning the good stuff.

• Lunches were a little better, where many kids were talking to another physical human being in their dorky teenager ways. Still, our introverts and social-awkward kids were buried in the latest episode of their favorite (I still hoped) anime or other stuff. By allowing phones at lunch, we are actively reinforcing poor social skills.

• I’m not proud of it, but I gave in once or twice. This was me last October:

  

  I put that image in myself. I am self-loathing.

  I’m human. I’m also a parent, and know from experience that sometimes, for the love of god, you gotta give the baby a pacifier and they will shut the hell up for maybe ten minutes of blissful silence.
  
  Also in my defense, they were ninth graders, which in terms of high school, are basically:

  

  Seriously, 9th graders are the worst.

• My opening quotes. Being the asshole who collects phones can make you feel like you’re on an island. And sometimes your kids will verify that for you: your classroom is Asshole Island, and it has a population of you.

• I didn’t think the olds who came up with the policy needed to be learned of this, but here’s a thing: as predicted, a phone up front or otherwise out of sight, but still Bluetoothed to earbuds (concealed under hair, or blatantly, visibly worn) or to a smart watch means the student is still connected to the phone. I’ve seen kids text on their Apple Watch by touch, under a table. So, yes, even though these things are mentioned in the policy, it’s nearly impossible to detect or enforce unless I devote a not insignificant portion of my class time to search and seizure of phonestuffs.
  
  So, either the older folks who came up with the policy were unaware of this side of newfangled technology (which is somewhat likely) or didn’t care because it would be the teacher’s problem (which, for my money, is most likely).

• Since this policy put 100% of the enforcement on us, it was Just Another Thing We Needed to Do Every Day That Wasn’t Teaching. There are a lot. Naturally, we (teachers) grew tired and distracted by the fires that needed to be put out daily, as well as the overall demands of the job. And it would all culminate by the end of the semester and the end of the year.
  
  And students were always trying to get their phones. If you didn’t tell them to put them in the rack every day, they wouldn’t. If you had a sub, it was a coin flip if they would even ask, but usually, they wouldn’t. Why does a retiree need shit from a teenager? Just sit there and read your Bible at them¹¹.
  
  It was a constant battle.
  
  They didn’t learn to put their phones up as a behavior. It’s part of the deal with the addiction. Addicts don’t learn. It’s almost as if they’re not in control of their behaviors, or something.

• Oh, and I was mentioned by name at the start-of-the-year meeting along the lines of “We know what Brady’s gonna say…” before talking about how we’re going to do our best, despite how the rules look. As I predicted last summer, my concerns were minimized and castrated without ever getting aired.
  
  Always, no shade — part (a large one) of being an admin requires you to follow orders, so you’re just following orders¹², whether you agree or not. I fall back on policy or rules a bunch in my classroom or hall when someone wants to go all “hallway lawyer” on me. I don’t care, this is what the rule says. I get it.

• Finally, this is all, of course, my experience. The policy yielded no desirable results and only made things worse. With no latitude in the policy for enhancing things in the coming year, and admin…reluctance¹³ to clamp down on this particular issue, school-wide, well…

Wars and Rumors of Wars…

As a teacher, you (hopefully) learn quickly to put zero stock in rumors. You (again, should) learn to think of any story a student tells you as 50% accurate, at best, and stories from other teachers, maybe 60%.

Reagan popularized a Russian saying. He didn’t say it first.

That said, the stories I heard from other schools and other teachers were similar to mine, or worse. Some principals told their faculties they had other things to worry about, other battles to fight, so back-burner phones. School policy always superseded district policy¹⁴.

Some teachers I spoke to were full of glory and amaze at how wonderful it was all going with the policy, but that was at the start of the year. And when I would start tugging at the threads of their amazing and glorious stories, things would begin to fall apart pretty quickly, and reality would start to peek through.

And overall, my school this year, under the shitty policy felt absolutely no different than the previous years when we were under no such shitty policy. None of the glorious intellectual and “return to teenagers” awakenings that I read about enviously in schools with Yondr pouches happened. So 2024-25 phone vibe = 2023-24 phone vibe. The students certainly didn’t see it as an impediment to keeping up with their screen addictions.

So, my experience and the stories I’ve heard have learned me one thing real good:

No One Cares

Okay, to clarify - yes, Jon Haidt, Nicki Petrossi, and Scott Galloway still care, and I also did my time with some meetings with the Phone Free Schools Movement, but they’re outliers. And my meetings and conversations with them got to such a point of cognitive dissonance¹⁵ that I had to check out (and the school year is busytime).

And a second layer of clarification: organizations, such as school districts, move from crisis to crisis and get distracted (quickly) by shiny things, mandates shoved down their throats, or millions of dollars missing from the budget. What could appear to be a lack of care could actually be a matter of not taking the time or effort to care.

But from my vantage point¹⁶ and my experience:

The District Doesn’t Care

See earlier comments about self-congratulatory PR releases and photo ops about the phone policy. That wasn’t a lie. Not even a little. Once that final camera clicked, that marked the last time the Board or District gave a shit about phones in schools. They had other concerns and other fires to worry about¹⁷.

For a district that has stacks of unpaid bills, an accounting ledger that’s so red it glows like a special effect from a John Carpenter movie, and isn’t 100% sure if the lights will be on for the coming school year…there are more critical things to give a shit about.

And they’re certainly not going to cough up the money for Yondr pouches (throwback to how this whole thing started!) — things that districts that were serious about having no phones in classrooms did.

Ahh, Yondr pouches. Some naive, but well-intentioned teacher once thought this adoption would be an easy thing that would benefit kids, and after all, isn’t that what we want? Cherry, popped.

The Union Association Doesn’t Care

We’re an at-will employment state in North Carolina. That particular offshoot of hell means that it’s a worker’s nightmare and a corporation’s wet dream. We’re also on track to have 0% corporate tax rate soon, because apparently all of the GOP state legislators’ Fallout bunkers are complete and they’re ready to double down on not giving a shit about citizens, public education or the rest of the surface world.

Everything about this image is accurate.

Long story short, we can’t have a “union” union; we have an association. The legislature works hard to neuter us, and it has largely succeeded. Anyway, they fight battles that are mostly budget-related, and tend to go hand-in-glove with the District leadership. I’ve got issues¹⁸.

I tried a couple of times to get some support from them about this collective thing that collectively harms our students that would benefit from some collective action, and…well, I was left on read. So the collective voice of the district teachers ain’t giving a collective shit.

Shoulder shrugs - doing a lot of them can get you some swole shoulders.

Also, for a few reasons, they have a public black eye right now and are focused on…well, see footnote(s). It might not be the worst thing in the world that they’re not associated with a cell phone ban.

Parents and Adults Don’t Care

Allow me to touch this thing...

It’s a rail, somewhere between two and four.

Aside from a couple of parents I’ve heard from, parents in general…this isn’t an issue that resonates with them, and in many cases, it's an idea they are opposed to. Let me quote my tattoo guy when I recently said that we need phones out of schools, bell to bell. He has a daughter in middle school, and he looked at me and said,

[noise of sucking air in through their teeth] “Yeeeaaaaah…I don’t know about that one.”

Look, my tattoo was about 3/4 done, was looking great, but I was in for a lot more pain to get it done, so I didn’t pursue that line of conversation. His angle had the safety issue as its foundation, and built from there. In short, by virtually all metrics, our kids (in school and the world) are multiple times safer than when Gen X or Millennials (or iGen, as brilliantly coined by Jean Twenge) were children. But we tell ourselves (and seek out) stories about how we may never see our kids again after dropping them off at school in the morning, because the world is a dangerous and scary place.

As I mentioned in my piece on school safety, conveying the idea that the world is safer than it has ever been to parents is a monumental task, one that requires considerable time and patience. No one in the school’s got that. Once programmed with the idea that “my babies might never come home!” and reinforced every single day, changing a mind is next to impossible.

We’ve also got the arguments of, “They’re going to be working in a world with phones, so they should learn how to use them as kids.” This, as I’ve said before, most often comes from the parent who has spent zero hours and zero minutes teaching their kid any responsible use of the digital device they’ve had since they were two, and got really good at that game.

Ugh.

When covering someone’s class late in the semester, I heard one student say to another (who was on their phone¹⁹, “Oh my god, you’re such a screenager!” I chuckled at the term.

Then wept. The kids know this is bad. They know this is not how things are supposed to be.

Which also leads to this (did I say touch the third rail? I meant lick it…):

Asking our kids to go without phones…yeah, we’re asking people with needles in their arms and the drug a-pumpin 24/7 to convince someone with a mind more open to suggestion that they should take the needle out of their arm. They see us with our phones²⁰. Where’s a good example²¹?

Addicts aren’t really your go-to for getting other addicts to quit.

If you know what this is, your back hurts right now.

This is all of us, virtually all adults —we have let our kids down. We could have done something earlier, we could do something now, but we didn’t, and in any significant, meaningful way, we aren’t.

We know phones and social media are bad for kids (and us), on every front. Yet, here we are. We give our kids devices; we look the other way when we know they’re using them too much. We ignore all of the signs that this is an addiction. And if a teacher suggests we take the phone away from the kid, the push back goes along the lines of, “Yeah, I don’t want that fight²².”

Adults can’t — and don’t — use phones responsibly. Who exactly are we depending on to teach the kids to use them responsibly?

I mean - in a recent podcast with Ezra Klein, Jon Haidt tells a story of how when a preacher asked his congregation to read along in the Bible for service, people pulled out their phones and (maybe) read along. After the reading…well, their phones were already in their hands, and that guy in a funny dress was about to start getting really boring.

After all, it’s not like it’s a sin, right, Father?

And Overall, Nothing’s Going to Be Done

At least for me, from what I can see.

Many of the phone-free organizations are wonderful, optimistic groups, and they share how change is imminent and can be felt. I teach science - feelings are bullshit. Show me evidence.

Maybe change is coming for some districts in some areas that are progressive and well-funded, but those two words do not, in any way, describe my day-to-day. I feel strongly that I’m not alone, but I can only speak to my situation.

Now, nay-sayers…I know: “Doesn’t North Carolina’s General Assembly have a law coming to get rid of phones in schools?” Well, yes. But even when reporting on it, WRAL.com hits the right blend of the cynical, the eye-roll and a supressed chuckle. It’s magical:

The North Carolina House of Representatives voted with near-unanimous support Tuesday to order local school districts to ban cellphones in almost all instances, at least during class time.

Two qualifiers! The reporter must be a parent or know some teachers.

It’s going to have changes to it, and there hasn’t been much action on it lately, but basically…this:

Don’t know if you remember it (can’t blame you if you don’t), but when reviewing my District’s cell phone policy, I said it was so bland and boiler plate-y that it looks like something someone found online, or grabbed off of a policy-writing machine like ALEC, and threw in for adoption.

How will this potential law do anything that isn’t already being done by my district and the majority of the districts in the state? If this law gets passed, my District would review it, the district lawyer would ensure compliance, and then everyone could return to the pressing issue of current finances or lack thereof.

This is the problem with so many state laws about cell phones in schools — they’re being copied, state to state, by people whose primary goal is to be re-elected, not serve the people they represent or do anything to make a better future. And at best, these laws push it to the districts to do something²³, rather than use their power and mandate the state’s schools to do something for the greater good of the state.

Side note - Florida’s law looks interesting, but we’ll see if the bell-to-bell pilot for high schools ever gets another mention.

And Besides…

Let’s not fool ourselves here. If a state decided to lock up the phones of every public school student all day, every day, across the state, parents would be enraged at the freedom that’s being taken away from them to interrupt their child’s education at any moment, and vast movements would coalesce.

If the governor of the state is a Democrat or the state is blue, threats of cutting federal funds would likely be floated by the easily offended yet eager to please their base, Administration²⁴. The threats of investigations into the governor from the FBI, FCC, and DOJ would most likely accompany the financial threats.

And if it got to a point that Meta²⁵, Snap, or any of the online betting sites saw traffic (read — $$) dip significantly during the school day, all Zuck²⁶ would have to do is whine to the Administration about how it’s not fair that his company is being unfairly targeted by mean, mean people who don’t like him.

And poof, those state regulations would disappear under an executive order that would require all students, for their safety, to have access to phones at all times during school days, both for educational (read using AI to find answers) purposes and protection when they inevitably encounter an individual exercising their 2nd Amendment rights²⁷ on school grounds.

Yeah, I’m making this story up, but we’re far past the point of claiming there’s no chance a made-up story isn’t going to become reality, especially if it leans on the support of fascism and currying favors with those in power.

Look, I want to be hopeful, but I’m just not seeing any solid movement on phones coming up anytime soon in my district for all of the above reasons (and new ones I’m sure will crop up). I’ll keep pushing, keep fighting, keep educating, and keep being ignored and written off by the Board and leadership as someone “who will never be happy with anything we do…”

Man, I hope I’m wrong about all of this.

Yeah… maybe—maybe in ten years, age out and rotate out the current Board, get a new Superintendent (or two), maybe have a Principal that goes rogue and enforces a no-apologies bell-to-bell policy in their school somewhere in the district… Maybe.

I still have hope that the people who are supposed to be looking out for and wanting the best for our kids will nut up and walk the walk. The talking is no help.

Thanks for reading.

1. Okay - that one. And I’ll get into this in a minute, but this stuff happens when you unceremoniously dump enforcement of an unenforceable policy on teachers. When I count up phones, and I have 27 in my rack from a class of 32, what do I do? I can’t search them. And even if I ask, I’ll get, “I didn’t bring it today,” or “It got taken.” The first one is a lie for 99% of those who say it. The second one gets a follow-up question of, “What did you do?” which will yield a good story some of the time, and a lie (because they have their phone) the rest of the time.

2. And have a pretty good feeling of what the First Amendment says and how, even now, it’s interpreted.

3. The whole thing is long and self-indulgent to the extreme, but (a) I was trying to work through it all in my head, and writing is the best way to do that, and (b) this is my Substack, not yours.

4. We were in a transition year — the old principal retired, and a new one (after a delay) was selected, but wouldn’t join us full-time until the end of the year. If you’ve never experienced a situation where the power vacuum was palpable, it’s…something.

5. That’s a Pokémon reference. Ask your kids, they’ll explain. Keep them close — I feel a Minecraft reference coming on…

6. But again, not their fault, it’s just how the sausage factory works. Are we cool, guys? I don’t want to start the coming year with one strike against me. Just stating the obvious that we all know here.

7. Am I part of the problem? Yes. But did I have things to do during my planning, which, in my snap-judgment mind, were more important than being a phone policeman? Also, yes.

8. Schrodinger’s Classroom Management 101: Admin tells you that you should be teaching “bell to bell,” when you cannot teach bell to bell. Both of these things are true at all times — when an admin looks in towards the last two minutes of class, you must be teaching. When no admin is peeping, the kids are getting packed up and ready to move to the next class so they won’t be late, and you’re not dicking over your fellow teachers.

9. Do not wave your DSM-5 at me. They’re addicted. You know this. Watching a family at a restaurant put a two year-old on a phone so they shut the fuck up during dinner is the same thing as watching them light up a cigarette for the kid. It’s dopamine, not nicotine, but the effect is the same. Both of those kids — the Marlboro Kid and the “he just gotten so good at this game!” kid — their futures are fucked.

If you’re a parent and getting mad at me right now, pace yourself. You’ll be furious at me in a couple more installments.

10. Which will come as news to some of my colleagues and students.

11. True story.

12. The oblique reference to the Nuremberg defense was totally unintended. Only good things happen when subordinates just follow orders.

13. Again, no shade - just reality. Admins have more fires going on than telling teachers (some of whom are ready to bolt because…teaching in 2025) they need to be tougher on phones. I’m sure we’ll start strong in the coming year, but spoilers — a year from now, you may well read, “Two Years in With a Shitty Cell Phone Policy.”

14. Unless Florida Woman was visiting. Have I said who “Florida Woman” is yet? No? Keep reading. It’s coming.

15. So many things were being said by well-meaning people who weren’t teachers that went totally against my experience that I started to feel like I was wrong, and my perception of my experiences was incorrect. Twilight Zone moments. So many Twilight Zone moments.

16. Your mileage may vary, but again, my Substack.

17. Holy shit - the fire. We’re somewhere between $42 and $60 million in the hole going into next year due to financial mismanagement that no one has (to date) taken responsibility for or been held accountable for. Every single goddamn employee of this distract has played out the “If I did what the Superintendent did…” scenario in their head. Most of us realize that we would be fired within a day, and wages garnished to the point of living in the woods and eating bugs and roots for the rest of our lives. Florida Woman gets to retire comfortably in Florida with awards, a sweet parachute made of a precious metal, and tearful accolades from the Board and other organizations (including my faux union!). At the same time, the entire district staff looks on at this masturbatory circus with the collective expression of:

I’m not going to say more, because I don’t want the spasms of District to notice me and jerk my way. But…holy shit what a teachable moment this has been for our kids regarding accountability, and who can get away with what as long as they are x, y, and z. So…thanks for that, guys?

18. Born and raised by proud union teachers in Western PA, who were friends and allies with AFL-CIO, Teamsters, United Steelworkers Union, and the UAW. Stories of the Homestead Strike were still well known, and were roughly just two generations in the past. My folks struck their district twice. I know what a union is. That’s why I will only call mine an association.

19. Not my students, not getting into fights to get them to put up their phones, since all they “had” to do was review for a test. Most of them were working anyway.

20. And they especially see you who has yet to realize your phone is not a walkie-talkie, and you don’t have to talk to people on speaker out in public. You can have a private conversation. Blerg.

21. This is my ticking clock - I strongly feel that Gen X is the last generation of teachers (fewer of us every year) that can push for this. We grew up without phones and can remember our childhood and teenage years without them. Yes, Millennials, I am throwing shade on you and your phone-addicted, relative morality, feelings uber alles ways. For fuck’s sake, you’ve been dubbed iGen. Your heart won’t be in getting kids off phones.

22. True story.

23. Because there should be local control of public education, right? Unless it’s {clutch hankie and pearls}, the idea of trans kids participating in sports and then OH MY GOD WE NEED TO HAVE FEDERAL HEARINGS ON THE IDEA — THE VERY IDEA THAT THIS COULD HAPPEN! WE NEED A FEDERAL LAW RIGHT NOW! {release clutched hankie and pearls}

24. I said what I said. My next installment may come from El Salvador. If one of us does not have due process, none of us has due process.

25. This whole thing makes you think I was going to include X and then play up Elon being so easily offended that traffic is down during the school day, right? Yeah, no high schooler uses X. Well, some might, but those kids are also interested in buying Cybertrucks and investing in crypto. Blerg.

26. Or whoever 47’s new techbro buttboy is, since he’s starting to go through them.

27. Again, safety, most likely won’t happen.