A new cell phone policy was implemented at Southwest for the 2022-2023 school year. When students enter any classroom they must put their cell phones away in a phone caddy. 

Other electronic devices such as smartwatches and bluetooth headphones must be put away as well. 

“I like the new policy,” senior Jack Thielen said. “It always bothered me when my classmates would be on their phones when the teachers were giving instruction or even when we were supposed to be doing a group project. I hope the policy works so that these things don’t happen in my classes anymore.”

The phone policy was put into place in an attempt to minimize distractions in the classroom and  boost grades overall. 

“The goal is to enhance learning in our building,” Associate Principal Mr. John Hastings said. “We don’t want to take phones away from students, we just want distractions gone from such a critical time in their education. As a group we decided that this was what our school needed since phones became such a huge problem in our building.”

 Teachers are allowed to give students phone breaks or allow phone use during non-instructional times. If students are caught using their phones without permission the student will be given a warning. If the student is caught again after the warning, their phone will be taken away. The student will have to retrieve their phone from the security office at the end of the day and a plan will be made to stop the student from being distracted. 

There is currently a district discussion to see if the new phone policy implemented at Southwest will be added to other schools. It is currently unknown if the addition of the policy will be a district decision or school-based decision.