Montgomery County high schools are navigating “inconsistencies” in the rollout of a new policy banning students’ cellphone use not only in class, but in the hallways and during lunch.
Five weeks into the academic year, some students are complaining that the restrictions go too far, while school officials seek a uniform answer to a basic question: Where do you store all the phones?
The “bell to bell” ban in high schools is different from last year, when students could pull out their phones in the corridors or during lunch period to check in with parents or friends, or engage on social media.
The issue for the county school system isn’t so much the policy itself, but what “phone-free” actually looks like — and the uneven, sometimes awkward process of enforcing it.
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Adam Van Grack, a Rockville Council member whose son attends Wootton High School, said he understands that teachers should not have to compete with phones for attention. But he is ambivalent about an absolute ban, at least until the details are finalized.
Van Grack said he views the issue “through a slightly different lens” after a nonfatal shooting at Wootton last year, when the school was placed on lockdown. Van Grack’s son was in a barricaded classroom, and “I cannot overstate how important it was to me, as his father, to be able to text with him, to hear directly from him that he was OK, and to stay connected with him.”
Apprised of the council member’s comments, the school district sent The Washington Sun a fact sheet emphasizing that the county permits student cellphone use during emergencies. It is up to the school principal to temporarily lift the ban.
Among Van Grack’s concerns is making sure students’ phones can be accessed if urgently needed.
During nonemergencies, MCPS schools use a variety of systems to help keep the devices out of students’ hands, including storing them in lockers, classroom caddies with slots for individual phones, or pouches that typically remain locked during school hours.
The fact sheet, which was sent by the school district to families, said the ban applies to “class time, lunch, recess, and passing periods like walking in the hallway or using the restroom.”
The memo didn’t specify where the phones would be kept, and some students say it’s easiest to carry the devices with them unless a teacher objects. Some teachers require students to place phones in a “caddy” with slots to accommodate as many as 30 devices.
“I normally keep it in my backpack,” said Audrey Elsasser, an Einstein High School sophomore. “Technically, it can be in your pocket but if they see it in your hand, that’s a problem. If you want to go to the bathroom, then you have to give them your phone.”
Ryan Aleman Reyes, a Walter Johnson High School senior, said: “We’re almost not even restrained on what we can do.”
Unless he is taking a test, Reyes said he has never been told to store his phone in a classroom caddy or locker. “Perhaps in some other classes, they have to do that, but I haven’t had to,” he said.
Jonah Mishalove, a senior and president of the Student Government Association at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, has had a different experience.
“There are phone pouches on the wall of each class, you are assigned a number on the first day, and you keep your phone in that number,” Mishalove said. “I’d say every teacher implements it. Some are a bit more lax about it.”
For example, he said, a teacher might permit a student to walk up to the pouch and “text your parents about a doctor’s appointment or something. But for the most part, you walk in, put your phone up. And then at the end, you take your phone and go to your next class.”
Under a Maryland state law passed in the last legislative session, each county Board of Education in the state is required to implement by the 2027-28 school year a policy prohibiting the use of smartphones and similar devices during the school day. Exceptions were made for students needing their phone because of a disability, health issue or to access language translation platforms or meet caregiving responsibilities.
Montgomery, the state’s largest county, opted to proceed a year early “in the interest of reducing distractions to teaching and learning,” said MCPS spokeswoman Liliana Lopez.
Asked about the variety of phone storage options, she said: “We expect to have worked through implementation inconsistencies before the state requirement takes effect next school year.”
Students violating the policy can have their phones confiscated for the day, with repeated violations subject to escalating disciplinary measures. Lopez said she didn’t have data on how many students’ phones had been taken away.
The ban includes tablets, smartwatches, AirPods, and other devices that connect to the internet.
The Sun requested interviews with five high school principals around the county to assess the transition to the new policy, but Lopez said the district wanted to complete the “implementation phase” before granting interviews.
Montgomery County’s middle and elementary schools already prohibited students from using the devices during the school day, so their policies did not need to be adjusted this year.
Across the country, schools are taking a harder line on student cellphones.
While most states have laws restricting cellphone use in schools, “probably a third or so of schools” nationwide have gone as far as Maryland in prohibiting the devices for the entire day, said Brian Jacob, a University of Michigan education policy and economics professor.
In many states, the rules are as simple as telling students their phones must not be visible. “I think the challenge with most of these no-show policies is that they’re hard to enforce, and the onus of enforcement really rests on individual teachers,” Jacob said.
Elsasser, the Einstein student, said she understands the need for cellphone restrictions in class, but considers it “unreasonable” to have extended the ban into lunch.
“It’s very unpopular,” Elsasser said. “It has nothing to do with focusing on school because you’re not doing schoolwork.”
Mishalove, the B-CC student, said the cellphone policy as a whole “is helpful for creating a good learning environment.”
But he agreed that the lunch period ban “is definitely something that should be looked at. I’ve been kind of communicating a little bit with our administration about that. I personally don’t see how that [restriction] is super helpful.”