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![\"Caleb](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tinsley-kcooper-2026-08-25-1024x683.jpg\")
Caleb Michael Tinsley, a senior at Hershey High School during the 2025-2026 academic year, said most students adjusted to the cellphone policy changes. (Kenny Cooper\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\nEarly reaction to off-and-away bans: \u2018It\u2019s been like night and day\u2019<\/p>\n
Taylor-Stuckey is now happy to have been proven wrong.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my goodness,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been like night and day. Kids are now more focused on the learning that is occurring within the classroom. They are not being distracted by those devices and social media and technology.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Just as importantly, she said students are talking to one another again and acquiring all of the soft skills that should make school enjoyable: cracking jokes, laughing and listening to each other. She credited the policy with having real consequences for cellphone use and effectively communicating the change to students and their families.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for the overall school atmosphere, I think it reminds us why we\u2019re here,\u201d Winslow said. \u201cWe\u2019re not here to mitigate drama. We\u2019re not here to see what\u2019s happening on social media. We\u2019re here to learn.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Caleb Michael Tinsley, a senior during the 2025-26 academic year, said students were \u201cnot thrilled\u201d about the policy. However, the complaints later evaporated once they got used to the ban. He said he\u2019s reclaimed something he didn\u2019t exactly know was missing.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something that you lose when you\u2019re in a phone versus speaking to somebody, and I really think that I\u2019ve gotten it back for my senior year and I actually really appreciate that,\u201d he said.
\nCaleb Michael Tinsley, a senior at Hershey High School during the 2025-2026 academic year, said most students adjusted to the cellphone policy changes. (Kenny Cooper\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n
During the 2024-25 academic year, Radnor experimented with phone pouches as a way to ban cellphones during instruction, but they proved to be unpopular with some parents and ineffective for crafty students eager to take a peek at their device. With a sleight of hand, some students put calculators and fake phones in pouches.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just realized it wasn\u2019t necessarily working to the highest level,\u201d MacNamara said.\n<\/p>\n
After months of focus groups and discussions, administrators decided to take a different approach. The policy was simple: a \u201cbell-to-bell\u201d ban with a caveat. Phones just had to be \u201coff and away.\u201d Violators would be disciplined. The school gave students notice before the 2025-26 academic year began.\n<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI heard \u2026 that people were gonna come to my door with pitchforks and hang me out to dry,\u201d MacNamara said. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a single kid who did that. So it really transitioned well, and through my administrative team and our teachers being consistent and following this rule, this initiative, we are making gains.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
What does science say about cellphones and child health?<\/p>\n
According to Education Week<\/a>, at least 39 states and the District of Columbia require school districts to either ban or restrict students\u2019 cellphone use.\n<\/p>\n In February, the Pennsylvania Senate passed<\/a> a bill to ban cellphones bell-to-bell in the state\u2019s K-12 schools. In June, the state House passed<\/a> a similar bill. However, progress stalled over the summer.\n<\/p>\n For years, educators and parents have viewed cellphones as a classroom distraction. Growing research tying cellphone use to mental health issues and other problems has intensified calls for restrictions.\n<\/p>\n Dr. Ran Barzilay, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, studies how environmental and lifestyle factors affect children\u2019s health, particularly under stress.\n<\/p>\n \u201cBut over the last, I would say, five years, watching my own kids grow up and seeing patients come in, you see that the environment of the kids these days, much of it, if not most of it, is online,\u201d Barzilay said.\n<\/p>\n He said smartphones reflect an inflection point in the kids\u2019 digital environment. Using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development<\/a> study, Barzilay, along with researchers at CHOP, the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University, studied the impact cellphones had on young people.\n<\/p>\n In December 2025, Barzilay and his collaborators found<\/a> that 12-year-olds who owned a smartphone had higher rates of depression, obesity and insufficient sleep than those who did not.\n<\/p>\n