Principal: Ballston Spa High School Students “Pretty Compliant” With Cell Phone Policy

BALLSTON SPA — Ballston Spa High School’s “silent and away” cell phone policy appears to be working, according to a presentation delivered by Principal Matthew Robinson at a December 18 Board of Education meeting.

Last year, the school implemented the new policy that requires phones to be silent and not visible in classrooms. Each classroom has a phone holder that teachers can either use or not use as they see fit. If a student is caught using a phone during class time, they are sent to the office and their phone is confiscated for the rest of the day.

Robinson said that, thus far, students have been “pretty compliant” with the rules. Freshmen and sophomores have been especially compliant, he said, because they became used to the policy during middle school. High School teachers have also reported that they’ve seen less cell phone issues during instructional time. 

According to data presented by Robinson, from September through December this year, there were 84 total cell phone infractions. These infractions tended to happen during unstructured time such as lunch, when cyberbullying incidents can sometimes occur. 

Robinson said he doesn’t think that cell phones have introduced new problems with bullying, but rather made existing issues worse. “It’s rare now that we deal with a bullying situation and there’s never a cell phone involved,” he said.