‘There’s no gray’: Thurston High starts year under cellphone ban

It was Thurston High School’s first day of school for all upperclassmen, and social studies teacher Tyler Nice, like all teachers at Thurston, was tasked with explaining the school’s new cellphone policy, based on Gov. Tina Kotek’s executive order, to his first-period class.

But Nice knew his audience. Within the first few minutes of his spiel the morning of Thursday, Sept. 4, he had already won a few chuckles.

“From this point on, if you have a cellphone on you, you will be a convicted felon for the rest of your life,” he said with a straight face. “That’s a joke, but we’re taking it seriously this year.”

He instructed everyone to put all internet-connected devices — including AirPods and Apple Watches — in their bags. Nice kept explaining the policy over the sound of backpack zippers opening and closing as students stored devices away.

If an adult catches a student with a device out of their bag between the first bell and the last bell, the adult will take it and bring it to the front office, Nice said. The student would then pick up the device at the end of the day.

If an adult catches a student a second time, a parent would need to pick up the device from the school. On the third offense, the student would have to turn in their phone to the front office every morning, where it would remain for the school day.

“You might be surprised, I didn’t get into education for regulating cellphone use,” he said to the sophomores in his class. “This is not a fun thing for me, so if you guys can do me a favor — don’t make me do this stuff, OK? Help me.”

High schoolers are the main student population who will have to adjust their habits to comply with the state’s new ban on internet-connected devices during school hours — including lunch time, free periods and between classes.

While students see the distraction their devices create during class, some think the complete ban during time outside of their classrooms isn’t fair – and not being able to use phones during lunch will be a hard transition to make.

Administrators, meanwhile, are determined to hold the line.

Students disagree with lack of autonomy outside of classrooms

On their way to the library to collect their textbooks for Nice’s class, Athena Isitt, 15, and Izzie Rodakowski, 15, reflected on the new rules.

Isitt saw the news of the state cellphone ban in schools on TikTok and had mixed feelings.

The new policy closely resembles the full ban on cellphone use the girls had in middle school, where they couldn’t use phones at all, including at lunch or in the hallways. But, being sophomores, they had the freedom of using their phones outside of class time last school year, and it’ll be hard to go back.

“I think not being able to use it during lunch and stuff is kind of dumb,” Isitt said. “What else am I supposed to do while I’m eating, sit there and look at nothing?”

Isitt and Rodakowski agreed, however, that they focus better without their devices out.

Samuel Booren, 16, is already used to a strict cellphone policy from his parents. They only allow Booren to use his phone to text friends when he’s home, and he can’t take it with him to school.

“I think it’s better for people to not be on their phones all the time,” Booren said. “They can just learn better and have the skills they actually need.”

Even though the new policy will give his friends a taste of his everyday experience, Booren doesn’t see the harm in people using phones during lunch. He thinks it’s fair that phones will be out of sight during class time, though.

Enforcement will be the most interesting aspect of the phone ban for Isitt and Rodakowski. They think some students will refuse to hand their phones over, because the phone belongs to them.

“I think people are going to argue and put up a fight,” Isitt said.

Enforcement starts now

Principal Kimberlee Pelster stood at the front gates of Thurston High School before the first bell. She welcomed students to their first day of school and kindly but firmly reminded the ones with phones in their pockets to put them in their backpacks.

Unlike Eugene School District 4J, Springfield is starting Gov. Tina Kotek’s device ban immediately. The Springfield Board of Education will codify the ban in a resolution sometime this fall, but schools are allowed to make school-based working policies before the resolution is adopted.

“How you start is how you end,” Pelster said. “It is really difficult to change course in the middle of the year. It’s easier for us to pause and enforce it to a really high degree right here at the beginning and set the tone right.”

Thurston’s freshman class started school a day earlier, Sept. 3, and Pelster said only seven students had phones taken away, out of about 315 students, which she saw as a success. 

She likes the governor’s ban because it pre-emptively stops misuse of devices before it even starts — and isn’t optional.

“The beauty of (the ban) is that it’s just blanket, we don’t negotiate about it, there’s no gray,” Pelster said. “And that actually makes it a lot easier for kids and the adults to enforce and hold that boundary.”

Pelster received some concerned feedback from parents before the year started about how the device ban would affect their ability to reach their children during an active-shooter incident.

Because of the school shooting at Thurston in 1998 — in which two students died and 25 others were injured — it is not just an imagined scenario for parents. Some parents attended Thurston at the time of the shooting, Pelster said. She took parent feedback into consideration while designing the school policy and ultimately decided that letting students keep phones in their backpacks was the best compromise.

At Thurston, enforcement began after the first period on the first day. Administrators expect teachers and staff who monitor the halls and lunchroom to take any phone they see, even if they don’t know the student. The principal also assigned some student support staff to monitor lunch in order to beef up enforcement during the first couple weeks of school.

If a student refuses to hand over the phone and doesn’t give their name, the staff member will note the time and location and tell Thurston’s supervision team. The team will then review camera footage and identify the student for discipline purposes.

Through her enforcement of the ban so far, Pelster has seen that kids know what is expected of them. They’re just testing the boundaries.

“What they’re testing is, ‘Where’s the line this year?’” Pelster said. “I think if we show them we’re really serious, we’re really committed for their well-being, we’re going to get those devices out of the way of them building relationships and out of the way of their learning, I think kids will come with us.”