Dear Governor Abigail Spanberger,
We write to you to bring attention to the adverse impact of the phone policy recently implemented in our Commonwealth. As we believe, there is a disconnect between the students of Virginia and our political figures. We address you not as angered, capricious, phone-obsessed teenagers, but as students who have experienced and seen the policy firsthand.
Although we recognize that this state law aims to promote personal connection and academic growth, we feel that it targets our personal liberties by imposing on our free time, creates a difficulty for staff in their ability to be confident educators, and, as student-journalists, hinders our ability to properly execute our journalistic passions in our school community.
Prior to this change in policy, the expectation was that we put away our personal devices during class, but we had freedom to use our phones during non-educational periods of school. This policy promoted student well-being and class participation, but still allowed us to engage with our community, and was overall beneficial to building healthy habits—an idea that we feel most students can agree on.
Until January 1, our district allowed teachers the freedom to direct students to use phones under supervised conditions for academic purposes. This included students using phones to film videos for school projects, and for us, it enabled the use of phones to record interviews for journalism, access social media for research purposes (most organizations at our school post their updates on social media), and create our own posts for social media.
As individuals who recognize the sheer importance of education in our lives, we understand the value that comes with responsible phone usage, a habit we each learn on our own. With the school enforcing policies such as this one, even students who have healthy routines with their personal devices are having to comply.
For example, during lunch, many of us choose to shut off our phones and interact with those we sit with. But, what truly stimulates student interaction and communication during lunch and the passing moments between classes are phones, especially when there are big school events coming up, like homecoming or prom. Certain clubs (which, might we add, already foster interaction), our own student government, and communication from administrators stems from technology. The school has already created a community online, and it’s not necessarily one that can be taken away.
There are also students who turn to their phones as a safe space, including introverts who aren’t necessarily comfortable with or don’t know how to foster those connections. Taking away students’ phones is taking away this very essential safe space that many rely on.
Students not being permitted to have their phones during lunch or even during the five minute transition periods before classes effectively prohibits us access to our parents (especially in cases of transportation arrangements or illness), siblings, and even employers. In the case that we need to get in contact with any of these aforementioned individuals, we don’t even have the freedom to do so. That’s a violation of our rights.
“Friends aren’t going to manifest in the absence of phones,” said past County Chronicle editor and current University of Virginia student Evelyn Kuzminski. “The state officials, the state legislatures, and the educational administrators have put so much thought into this, but that’s just not how it works. Phones aren’t the obstacle that they think they are to the connection [between students and administration].”
The state law, forcing us to follow their policy with this usage, completely pauses the establishment of healthy habits, which stand tall throughout the rest of our lives and support us in becoming responsible adults. A palace without pillars has the danger of falling apart; hindering students’ ability to create meaningful phone habits and routines on their own dangerously impacts their futures.
On the other hand, we students are not the only ones having to comply with this concerning policy; teachers have also expressed their anxieties.
Teachers have enough responsibilities, with little time in between classes, grading, and planning to enforce phone laws or manage behavior. While we have other staff, such as school resource officers, to monitor behavior, there is simply no real way (or time) to effectively enforce a law as extensive and controlling as this one.
While they already do not get paid enough, teachers are now also having to adhere to such policies by supervising students during class transition periods and lunch (times of the day where they should have time to run to the bathroom, eat, and prepare for their next class), which not only creates a much greater workload for them, but also hinders their ability to provide feedback to students in a timely manner by imposing on time they can use to grade our assignments.
Additionally, our core classes have the technology to support their curriculums. Our elective classes often do not. For example, at our school, journalism is offered as an English elective class, through which a group of student-journalists work hard each quarter to put together a print issue of our school newspaper. All of our staff would agree that our phones assist in our lives as student-journalists in a profound and highly meaningful way.
Saying that we use our phones for everything would be an understatement. These devices are with us when we brainstorm ideas for articles and stories that need to be covered, taking notes, recording and transcribing interviews, and doing background research using apps such as Instagram and X—both of which are blocked on our school computers—to assist in this process.
Most importantly, our phones’ easily accessible voice recording apps make it almost no work to conduct interviews and upload them to our Google Drives.
When identifying people in photos, social media is often our primary source of information; we are able to use our phones to support our schoolwork and promote the integrity of our school newspaper. Social media and our phones are the easiest way to get in contact with people.
In short, phones have become a tool that allow us to be productive. We have in our pockets the power of a recording studio, a photography studio, and a library, and because our phones are usually fairly upgraded, we always have access to the latest technology to help us stay current with trends in productivity.
Or, at least, we did.
To combat the disappearance of our phones in class, the journalism classes in Loudoun County are being provided ten voice recorders each, which cost an estimated $100 each, costing the district upwards of $20,000. Where this budget comes from, we do not know. But, as student-journalists who have already asked our administration and school board for additional technology and been told that funds did not exist, it feels absurd to learn the district was forced to find money for these voice recorders which can barely replace the technology we already own.
As journalists who have interviewed members of and been involved in our school community, we fully believe in promoting social interaction and communication between students, but such things can be done without completely limiting our access to phones. Phones are a reality of life, and teaching students how to use them responsibly is essential. In the workplace, employees need to know when they can and cannot access their phones. They need to know when phones can be a tool and when they will be a distraction. We cannot learn this when our phones are prohibited at all times.
We want to emphasize that creating a focused and distraction-free learning environment was already underway with the previous phone policy adopted by our district, when our phones were only put away during class. Students and teachers alike applauded this policy. Enforced at the school level, it provided students with a distraction-free academic environment while allowing them some freedom between classes and at lunch.
A good policy has implications that improve the lives of those it impacts. It is evident that this new policy does not do much to promote student interaction or educational growth, but rather hinders it in a way we did not even imagine possible.
As students who truly value our time at school, we humbly ask that our liberties not be taken away by putting an end to this state law banning our phones and returning to the system that was in place prior to it. Please give us the tools we need to be successful journalists in high school and beyond.
We hope to hear back from you. •
Sincerely,
Taylor Helfer & Karan Singh, editors-in-chief
