Starting the 2024 to 2025 school year, there was a new policy applied to Lincoln Highschool: the phone zone. Where did this come from? From the district, or from Lincoln Administration?
After investigating the district’s published policies, their only policy appears to be that phones are not to be used in classes, as they are not SPS devices.
A public brief published by Chris Rhykdal, the Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction, quotes him as saying “I am challenging all Washington school districts to engage their communities over the next year with a goal to reduce distractions during instructional time and determine a path for restricting cell phone and smart device use in class by the start of the 2025–26 school year.”
Considering this, the policy seems to have come from Lincoln itself. But how?
Cory Campbell, a history teacher at Lincoln, said, “Lincoln’s policy was proposed by 1 or more teachers, and it was brought to the entire staff for a vote. I believe it was over 90% yes in agreement with the proposal.”
When asked, “What is the district phone policy to your understanding?”, Campbell responded “My understanding of the district policy is that schools can make their own decisions about phones.”
Karen So, a Language arts teacher also at Lincoln, said something similar, that building leadership had a meeting, and the policy was agreed upon by a majority of the staff members.
And for the district phone policy, So says that the district doesn’t have a deep policy, and leaves it up to each individual schools.
So how does Lincoln compare to other schools policy wise? Ingraham’s policy is that each class determines their own phone policy, although Ingraham’s admin recommend having students keep their phones in their bags. Nathan Hale’s policy on the other is phones are to be off and out of sight school wide.
Lincoln’s policy specifically states, “Unless given specific permission from staff, personal technology must be inoperable and away during class time. In each classroom, phones/headphones will be put in a PHONE ZONE and laptop kept away during learning time.”
Overall, Lincoln’s Phone Policy has come from Lincoln itself, as the district leaves the decision to the schools themselves.
