In February 2023, Shauna Haney, the principal of the 1,130-student Ogden High School north of Salt Lake City, was looking for ways to boost student engagement in class. As in schools nationwide, students were paying less attention to their teachers after they returned to the building following pandemic school closures. And students whipping out cellphones in the middle of class wasn’t helping.
“We looked at some data from where we’re getting the most write-ups or referrals, … and it was all to do with electronics,” Haney said. “If they’re on their phone, they’re not actively engaged in the learning process.”
While the school already prohibited cellphone use during instructional time, tired teachers still had to constantly police students.
If they're on their phone, they're not actively engaged in the learning process.
Haney first reached out to all 60-plus teachers and counselors and learned that while they wanted a new cellphone policy, they were worried about enforcing it. Their top concern: They didn’t want to wrestle phones out of students’ hands.
Haney and other school leaders also briefed the parent council on their plans.
Click through to see what Haney and her team decided to do.
After a student has their cellphone taken to the office the first time, a second infraction means a parent has to come to school to collect the phone. A third infraction leads to a parent meeting with an administrator to address the reasons why the student continues to violate the policy.
Parents were initially resistant to the new policy—they felt going cold turkey by banning cellphones in class and confiscating any in use would lead to chaos.
But as implementation proceeded, Haney said parents came around to the idea that no cellphones meant fewer distractions and more engagement in class.
About a year into implementing the policy, the trend held up: The number of first-time infractions in the 2024-25 school year was 355, but the school recorded only 101 second-time offenses and 47 third-time offenses. Haney’s efforts are now also bolstered by Utah’s statewide restriction on the use of cellphones in class, which took effect July 1.
Utah is one of at least 30 states and the District of Columbia that require school districts to ban or restrict students’ use of cellphones at school, according to an Education Week tally.
While it wasn’t particularly daunting to implement the policy, Haney said, administrators had to keep re-emphasizing its rules to teachers, parents, and students to make it work.
But now, parents from other districts have reached out to Haney for advice on implementation in their own schools, and she’s done walkthroughs with other principals to show the cellphone policy in action.
To get the policy to work, follow-through is important, Haney said.
“It takes a lot for us to be organized [to collect cellphones from the classes]. We definitely get our steps in,” Haney said. “This whole thing relies on us supporting our teachers and holding the students accountable for what we’re going to do.”
