The Park City School District Board of Education passed a no-cellphone policy in August. Its adoption followed months of conversations between the district and parents and a survey found 85% of teachers and parents supported a no-cellphone policy.
The policy allows each Park City school to set its own rules and regulations concerning cellphones.
At Treasure Mountain Junior High, which has eighth and ninth graders, students must keep their phones in pouches. The pouches are magnetically locked and only teachers have the key to open them. However, the fabric sleeves could be easily cut open in case of emergency.
Treasure Interim Principal Benjamin Mueller said during a Board of Education meeting Tuesday that the reduced cellphone use seems to have improved student behavior. He said there are fewer incidents requiring an in-school suspension or out-of-school suspension.
In the first quarter of the school year, Mueller said there were six such incidents. That’s compared to 19 incidents in 2023. And in quarter two of this school year, there were 12 incidents compared to 33 the year before.
Mueller said the improvement likely isn’t only from the cellphone ban, but there seems to be a correlation.
“So not wholly attributed to it, but what we don't have is students walking out of classrooms, picking up their phones, looking at what somebody said during class and then responding,” he said. “Anecdotally, we don't have students going to the counseling center and needing to mediate an issue that they've had going on with their friends.”
Mueller has also noticed kids interacting more during their lunch break.
“You see one or two screens open, like a laptop, but you're not seeing kids' faces down on phones, they are actually interacting with each other,” he said. “So we're very pleased with this effort so far.”
The district has also implemented other initiatives to prevent harassment and discrimination. Many of the efforts are in response to a federal investigation that found over 180 incidents of harassment in Park City schools from 2021 to 2023.
At Treasure and Park City High School, student leaders attended workshops to learn how to prevent antisemitism and hate speech. The district also launched a “We All Belong Campaign.” As part of the campaign, students and teachers can earn prizes for standing against bullying, harassment and discrimination.
