At the start of the school year, DCPS rolled out a new, sweeping zero-tolerance phone policy that has had impacts both inside and outside the classroom. Upon entry to the building, students are required to lock their phones away in Yondr pouches, unable to access them from bell to bell. The main focus of this policy is on the classroom, but in practice we’ve seen its effects reach far past academics: the policy is affecting sports practices, extracurricular outreach, and how clubs engage with their participants.
For extracurricular groups across our school, phones were not simply a distraction; connection through phones was a vital tool for clubs needing to communicate. Whether a coach needed to send a last-minute schedule change in the team’s Group-Me, or a club leader relying on posting a sign-up link through a QR code, club communication was built around devices that are now off-limits from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm.
“It’s been an adjustment,” said Maya Raj, a senior on the crew team. “We rely on Group-Me for schedule changes, and sometimes people can miss it.” She went on to add that typically, younger rowers relied on the Group-Me to coordinate rides out to practice, but now many “wander around” without a convenient way to secure a ride.
Club recruitment has also had to get creative. The JR Club Fair has always been crucial for club participation. However, it’s hard to connect people to clubs when they can’t fill out online applications and give their information digitally, and instead clubs have to rely on long hand-written lists of emails which are often hard to read.
Clubs across the school have faced challenges recruiting new members and maintaining participation. The Beacon used to recruit writers and artists by sharing a QR code but, without phones, editors have turned solely to posting flyers in halls and holding meetings in homerooms. It feels a little old-school, but in a way, it’s refreshing when people come to talk in person, instead of just scanning a code. There is certainly something to be said about the new policy’s effect on student connection, though. Students remind each other about meetings, talk to their classmates to spread the word, and use opportunities for conversation, like lunch, to recruit. While the loss of such a key tool for communication has decreased efficiency, it has helped some groups build stronger personal connections.
Still, the adjustment isn’t without frustration. “There’s definitely more miscommunication,” said Leila Ackil, recounting how after missing the change of a cross country meeting to inside the school, half the team “went to the Reno stage in pouring rain.”
The phone ban was designed to create a more focused school environment, but its ripple effects show just how much extracurriculars relied on instant communication. Clubs and teams face barriers to recruitment, are more prone to miscommunication, and overall have a harder time functioning coherently. •