Upper School Newsletter – January 8, 2025

Good evening Husky families,

As we begin the second semester I want to return to the topic of the cell phone policy at the Upper School. Over the past few months, I have met with parents, teachers, and students of each grade level. I have spoken with administrators and students at other schools to understand what they have learned through their various policies. I have also read a large number of studies, many of which were submitted by our parent community. As is the case with many situations in modern life, it is clear that there are many ways to approach this question, each with their own benefits and pitfalls. Yet, as is the case with many situations at Flint Hill, I have seen the commitment by our students and parents to accept whichever policy is adopted, even if it is not the policy that they would have preferred.

Our senior leadership team has decided that the Upper School will continue the policy of not allowing students to use or access their cell phones during class periods and advisory times.   However, students will continue to be able to access their cell phones outside of classes, including before or after school, breaks, and lunch. Each classroom will be fitted with an identical phone storage caddy where students will be expected to place their phones to begin class. The phone will stay in this caddy throughout the class period, including if the student leaves the classroom for the restroom. 

When a student violates this policy the first time by accessing their cell phone during class, the student will receive a detention. If a student violates this policy a second time, they will be required to submit their phone to the main office upon arrival to campus and leave it there for the duration of the day for an extended period of time, not to exceed a school quarter. Lastly, we have seen some students utilize a second cell phone to avoid having to hand over their device during class. Regardless of their intention, we feel strongly that it violates our core value of “Act with Integrity” because of the inherent dishonesty involved in that action. Situations where a student places an alternate phone in the caddy so that they might keep their real phone will be treated as an honor council offense. 

One of the most encouraging byproducts of this phone policy design process was how the students seemed to indicate that they fully understood the reasons why we need to remove cell phone distractions from the classroom. There were countless times where a student said, “Mr. Paige, we totally understand banning them from class, but please let us keep them during lunch and free period.” It would appear that all of these lessons about metacognition are yielding positive results with the students. 

Before we get to a series of Frequently Asked Questions, I want to share one more thought that the students repeatedly provided during my grade-level meetings. Students from each grade shared that they didn’t understand why we were putting so much emphasis on phone usage during the school day when “the real problems with phones happen at night.” Again and again students shared that the most adverse effects from phone usage occur at night. Loss of sleep, cyberbullying, doom-scrolling, distraction from studying, Instagram FOMO … the list goes on and on. Certainly, the time is ripe for families to discuss phone usage with their students with an eye toward establishing structures that will support their wellness and education. To that end, we have heard from many parents that they are looking for advice and guidance on how to address phone usage at home with their adolescents. We have held a couple of parent events already regarding family conversations about technology, and we will continue to explore when and how to hold parent programming to meet the schedules of our diverse population so that it might reach the widest audience.

If you have ideas about the best ways to present this programming, do not hesitate to reach out to me or Director of Counseling Tracie Epes with these suggestions. Also, our wellness staff have curated a set of parent resources that can be found on the Wellness tile of the Resources page in Husky Hub. There are book suggestions and a section titled “Technology and Digital Safety” that could support parent efforts toward all of these ends.

This more uniform system of procedures and consequences will begin on Tuesday, February 11. Until then, students are still not permitted to use their cell phones in classrooms.