Going into the 2024-’25 school year, students and parents received an email listing updates for the year. One of these updates was the new phone policy.

 This policy was drafted by the board after Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, established a law requiring all schools to have an effective phone policy. 

According to Jonathan Alder School Board President, Sonia Walker, a summary of the phone policy would be “phones away and off.” 

Walker stressed that this was not an easy decision to make, and that the board discussed the topic over a span of many meetings. “..this wasn’t something we just went, okay, we’re just gonna tell everybody that they have to put their phones away and keep ’em off,” says Walker. 

Walker explained that the junior high had already been used to having a no phone policy; this new policy was an extension of order to the surrounding grades. 

Because of this, some freshman students don’t see or feel much of a change, including Marlie Runkle. “I mean, we’ve always just had the same policy so I wasn’t really that concerned about it,” she says. 

Upperclassmen are more likely to notice a difference.  “It helps a lot of people,” Senior Nicole Berger says. “I focus more.” 

Other students have noticed times when they would like to have access to their phones. “I would like to have it during advisory,” junior Tyler Rapp says, but he also notices the benefits. “It’s nice to have real conversations with people.”

Mr. Deeken, a social studies teacher at JAHS, says it’s a generally positive change, and that students are mostly receptive to putting away phones when prompted. “Probably the thing that is most notable,” Deeken says, is “how much more students are engaging with each other on a face to face basis. You know, phones are used to engage with all kinds of content and people, but it’s nice to see that community happen in the classroom.”