In the Piedmont Pulse for the Week
of April 14, superintendent Jenni-
fer Hawn conveyed that in May, the
Board of Education would hear the first
reading of the official Phone policy. The
reading will be held on either Wed. May
6, or Wed. May 20.
On March 24, it was announced in
Hawn’s weekly newsletter, the Piedmont
Pulse, that during the 25-26 academic
year, the school board would be interest-
ed in implementing a district wide policy.
The PHS policy would prohibit phone us-
age at all times except for lunch. Further-
more, in the following year of 26-27, the
board plans to instate the most restric-
tive policy proposed, banning student’s
use of phones on campus all day. No
policy has formally been voted on at
this time.
On Sept. 23, 2024, governor
Gavin Newsom signed Califor-
nia Assembly Bill 3216, the
“Phone-Free School Act”
into law. The bill requires
every school district, char-
ter school and county of-
fice of education to create
a policy restricting or ban-
ning the use of cellphones
at school.
According to the bill,
students can’t have their
phones taken away during an
emergency, when given
permission to use the device
by teacher or a member of ad-
ministration, if a doctor affirms
that a smartphone is needed for the
health or well being of a student, or if use
of a smartphone is mandated by a stu-
dent’s individualized education plan.
In response, administration created a
task force led by Principal David Yoshi-
hara with the goal of developing a com-
prehensive phone policy for PUSD. On
Wed. March 12, the task force presented
their findings to the Board of Education.
The task force presented four possible
policies, with policy one being the least
restrictive, and policy 3b being the most
restrictive.
At the High School level, policy one
would be similar to the district’s current
policy. Students would be required to
place their phones in “phone hotels” at
the start of class and would leave them
until the end of the period. The only
change being that students would be re-
quired to place their phones in the phone
hotels during academy periods as well.
Under this policy, students would be al-
lowed to use their phones during brunch,
lunch, and passing periods.
The second policy is more restrictive,
with phones only being permitted during
lunch. The task force said that
phones would need to be
kept in a central, secure
location such as lockers
during the school day. Stu-
dents would not be allowed
to use phones during acade-
my, brunch, or passing periods.
The third policy presented was the total
banning of cellphones on campus. Stu-
dents would be prohibited from bringing
their cellphones to school. If students
needed to contact their parents, guard-
ians, or other parties, they would be able
to make phone calls in the office if nec-
essary.
The fourth policy is a “graduated ap-
proach,” wherein different grades would
have differing levels of restrictions placed
on their cell phone usage at school. The
exact details of how this approach would
be implemented were not presented
during the meeting.
After hearing all the policies, and taking
public comment, members of the board
of education expressed that they were
generally in favor of the third option with
some support for the second option.
Many students didn’t like the idea of
these new restrictive policies.
“The number one thing I’ve been think-
ing about is parents trying to contact
their children, especially after the SWAT
threat that happened earlier this year. Par-
ents might be worried about that,”
said junior Analie Lepansky.
Other students took issue with
the proposed policy because they
use their phone for productivity.
“It upsets me because some-
times when I forget to charge
my chromebook I use [my
phone] as a way to access
schoology to look at my as-
signments and do my work
during [my free period],”
said junior Luka Peña.
Freshman Andrew Mar-
tin had questions about
how a possible policy
might be enforced.
“Because we have
off campus lunch
I don’t know how
they’re gonna be
able to enforce the no phone
rule at lunch,” Martin said.
Senior Raiyaan Shah had a similar opin-
ion.
“I think it’s kind of a bad idea, cause
if you want to have an open campus and
not allow phones at lunch, that’s sort of
a mutually exclusive ruling,” Shah said.
“If you’re off campus you’ve gotta have
some kind of access to a phone.”
Even if they disagreed, students did un-
derstand why a ban was proposed.
“School-wise, I see why they want to
take it away. It’s fair because phones are
a distraction,” Martin said.
