High school solidifies 2026 cellphone policy plan

Students at Weston High School will be going from “phone hotels” to “phone lockers”next September as the district’s bell-to-bell cellphone ban takes effect.

In an update Monday evening, Principal Susan Bairstow presented her administrative team’s plans to align with the School Committee’s April 2025 cellphone policy, which will prohibit students from using personal electronic devices during school hours beginning next academic year.

High school students are currently allowed to use personal electronic devices during transition periods between classes, during lunch and in scheduled free blocks, but must place them in a “phone hotel” – think cubbies for cellphones – when entering a classroom. Pre-K through eighth grade students in the district are prohibited from using electronic devices during school.

“We’ve been doing that for three years and we’re really good at it now,” Bairstow said to the School Committee. “The phone hotels were a step in the right direction and now we have to figure out how to keep that momentum going with a bell-to-bell policy.”

Bairstow said the administration, faculty and some students provided input while thinking about how to implement the policy, and they came up with a cost-neutral solution that will have students place electronic devices in their lockers at the beginning of each school day.

The intent behind this policy, she added, is “getting some distance between the student and their phone.”

While a bell-to-bell ban is incoming, Bairstow said the current policy has been successful, with 10 reported “cellphone concerns” this year; seven of those students being ninth graders who may have been adjusting to the new policy.

School Committee members supported Bairstow’s proposal. Ken Newberg said he believes the policy will encourage students to be social and will ultimately help their education.

“Think about how great it is for these kids to have extra time with each other in the hallway,” Newberg said. “I think there’s going to be a real substantial benefit to the culture of the building.”

Bairstow noted that the implementation of the cellphone policy could evolve over time depending on how successful it is.

“Next year we’re implementing it, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end-all, be-all,” she said, “There’s a lot that will change in our building, and it will be very imperative for parents to understand that and to be working with us with this policy in mind.”

Momentum to ban student cellphone use at schools is growing at the state level, too. Over the summer, the Senate advanced Bill S.2581, An Act to Promote Student Learning and Mental Health, which would require all school districts to adopt a personal electronic device policy by the start of the 2026-27 school year. Those policies must include a “prohibition on the use and actual possession, strictly on their person, of a personal electronic device by a student during the school day.”

The Act requires the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to create a model policy to assist schools in developing and implementing policies of their own.

It was referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means on Aug. 4, where it awaits action.