Mixed reactions from parents, teachers, students, and administrators have been causing conversation surrounding the implementation of the Cellphone Hotel Policy at Dos Pueblos High School.
DPHS began enforcing the Cellphone Hotel Policy during the 2024-2025 school year. The policy requires students to place their cell phones in cell hotels at the beginning of each class period.
This policy is not new to the Santa Barbara Unified School District, though. Last spring, San Marcos High School also implemented this policy to limit the distraction of cellphones during class.
At the biannual DPHS Back to School Night, the Cellphone Hotel Policy was explained to parents during a presentation in the Elings Performing Arts Center. As the new policy was being explained, parents began applauding and celebrating.
“[Students’] parents gave me a standing ovation at Back to School Night,” Principal Bill Woodard said. “Before even the slide got up on the screen, I didn’t get the words out.”
Woodard has received more positive feedback from parents since the announcement of this policy.
“I get stopped at the grocery store, I got plenty of emails, and it’s the second most liked ParentSquare I’ve ever sent,” Woodard said. “I think they want, I think we all want, as a society, [is] to take the power of technology to impact our lives negatively away. Technology is great. There’s a lot of great things for education, but we are seeing unhealthy impacts of that on all of us, and I think we need families to help us with it.”
On social media, in response to articles written by Noozhawk and the Santa Barbara Independent, people had mixed reactions in the comment sections about the new policy.
Some commenters were worried that cellphones in the cell hotel would be useless in an emergency and advocated that cellphones should just be left in bags. Others were grateful that DPHS was implementing this system.
From DPHS teacher Mandy Domingues’s perspective, the enforcement of the cell hotel has proved to be a little difficult at first.
“As a teacher, it’s a daily reminder on having the cellphones put away,” Domingues said. “The Air Pods [are] a battle too, and then it is a time cruncher of going over there and making sure each of my students’ phones are in there. ‘Oh, you’re here, but your phone’s not.’ … I know once we get into a routine, it should work a little bit smoother.”
As a parent to a student at DPHS, Domingues appreciates the policy since it will encourage more students to interact with each other.
“I appreciate it, because there’s a whole bunch of studies that, you know, student interaction has been declining, because everybody’s really on their screens,” Domingues said. “So I think it helps students realize that without a screen in front of them, they have to interact, to converse with each other.”
While teachers, parents, and administrators hold their own opinions on the new policy, it’s the students who are being impacted. Some students are indifferent about the new policy, while others are frustrated.
“I feel like the teachers are super strict on not having your phones now in class, like, you have to walk in and that’s the first thing they’re worried about,” Sara Fonseca (11) said. “Normally people just leave their phones in their backpack. So I don’t know why they’re making a really big deal about it.”
Fonseca is also concerned about parents being unable to reach their children during the school day.
“I feel like, in a parent’s mind, it’s not, ‘I’m gonna call the office and tell them that I need to tell my daughter or my son this,’ like, I feel like, in their head, they’re just like, ‘I’m just gonna text them so it’s faster that way,’” Fonseca said. “But they’re super strict on [that] they don’t want to see phones at all. So, like, what do [they] want me to do?”
On a statewide level, California legislators passed the Phone-Free School Act on Aug. 28, which requires public schools to restrict or ban student phone use on campus during school hours by July, 2026.
One of the reasons this policy began was thorough research showing the negative impacts of phones on students in class.
“We were seeing all the research come in, not even nationwide, but globally,” Woodard said. “Regarding the impact of cell phones on students and concentration and focus.”
Studies have shown that an increase in screen time has been linked to increased adolescent anxiety and depression diagnoses, more behavioral issues, and a decline in academic performance.
Using information on the dangers of increased screen time among teens, the decision of implementing the Cellphone Hotel Policy encourages limited screen time and more attention on focusing in class.
With mainly positive feedback on the Cellphone Hotel Policy, DPHS currently intends to continue enforcing these rules to limit the distraction of phones in class.
