The bell rang, and students from the University Charter High School gathered their things and headed for the door. As students flooded the classroom, strange, new sounds filled the long corridor. Hundreds of students are talking.
To each other.
Before the Los Angeles Unified School District’s mobile phone ban came into effect in mid-February, mobile phone use was ubiquitous on campus. There’s no more.
To implement the new policy, university highs (and about 250 other LAUSD schools) turned to local companies. Yondr is the manufacturer of lockable pouches commonly used in film premieres, promoting a distractionless atmosphere.
Magnet-sealed pouches are the most popular choice among the schools to enforce new policies. Some schools have given cubby to teachers who put their devices on board. Others simply request that they be turned on and stored. But if there is a symbol of crackdown, it is Yongdol’s grey neoprene pouch.
Uni High Senior Uleses Henderson shows how the Yondr pouch opens.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The ban affecting around 800 campuses has been praised by teachers and administrators. In the rollout, they cited anecdotal evidence and data showing the negative health impact of free access to smartphones, which has contributed to an increase in student anxiety, depression and other issues, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“When I started talking to the school that was implementing it [a cellphone ban]I heard from a psychologist who said the fight was declining, drug sales were falling, and kids were reporting better school days,” said Nick Melvoin, a member of Lausd’s school board, who wrote the resolution to create a call-free campus.
But are students at University High, a Sawtel Neighborhood School known as Uni High, considering a month of ban?
Nick Melvoin, a member of the LA Unified Education Board, who co-drafted the ordinance prohibiting calls at LAUSD schools, has a yes-style YONDRICES AT AT issue with Uleses Henderson, Angie Mendoza, Eliase Mekale Kiflezghie, Kaylyn Kawaja, Camila Villarreal, 17, YONDRIT AT AT AT issue.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“It’s not the best, but I think it’s the best,” said Angie Mendoza, a senior and member of the school’s Student Leadership Council, who gathered for a casual report with Melbourne earlier this month. “Lectures can get a little boring and there’s the urge to scroll on Tiktok or Instagram, but that’s not the best habit. I’m paying more attention in my class, so I’m getting better grades.”
Others on the council also said they are learning to live with new rules. However, not all students are so charity.
“After 12 years of allowing my phone… are they going to take it off for three months?” asked Madison Thacker, a senior at Van Nuys High School Performing Arts Magnet. “They should have started it at the beginning of the school year. Students generally don’t like change. The kids are going to avoid this no matter what you do.”
Certainly, students spoke horribly about the dark art of avoidance. Some simply told the school officials who didn’t have cell phones. Others find decoys to place on their pouches and pocket the actual device for secret use throughout the school day.
Students head to Uni High’s Sawtelle Neighborhood Campus classes, which have recently been banned from using mobile phones.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“As of today, no one knows who’s put their phones in their pouches,” said Tucker, 17, who manages the school’s Instagram account and is allowed to use the device on campus. “The kids have old phones, burner phones, battery packs, and the most popular calculator.”
Next, there are various ways to break into a sealed pouch. Open it open via a magnet, with brute strength or using a pencil.
Yondr CEO Graham Dugoni is not surprised by the student initiative. He said the Mar Vista-based company spoke with teens about infringing technology so the company could improve its pouch design.
“We’re not naive,” said Dugoni, a former professional footballer who started Yondr in 2014.
From biker bars to school Bonanza
Dugoni said the “crystallization moment” discovered that Yondr occurred at the 2012 music festival.
He noticed that the drunk man was being recorded by other concert participants without his consent. Dugony felt that the gathering should have been a safe space where photographers could enjoy themselves without being filmed. The incident caused introspection.
Yondle’s CEO Graham Dugony is at his company’s Marvista headquarters.
(Ringo chiu / for the the the the alls
“Smartphone” [were] It just came out and the internet was clicking on another gear,” Dugoni said. [ask] …How does this affect people? ”
Dugoni, 38, said he began to imagine an environment where “deviceless” environment could escape the “tugs and pulls of modern life.” He began to refine the idea of lockable pouches and construct prototypes using materials sourced from hardware stores. Dugoni’s first customer held a burlesque show at a biker bar in Auckland. After that, school came to San Bruno.
In 2015, a call from comedian Dave Chappelle’s manager changed Yondr’s trajectory. The performers wanted to use pouches at the show, Dugoni said. Eventually, Chappelle became an investor in the company. The association with comedians gave Yondr a boost. Soon, many schools were signing up, including local schools. In the years before Lausd banned, around 30 campuses in the district decided to begin using Yondr pouches.
Starting in early 2024, Dugoni said public policy support for phone-free spaces has increased significantly, ensuring school districts around the country implement mobile phone bans. Today, Yondr pouches are used by approximately 2 million students in all 50 states.
Dugoni said his company is hearing directly from students. Many people appreciated the restoration of their normalcy as a student. However, he admitted that the company has also received “emails of hatred.” “‘What are you doing?'” Dugoni said of Missives. “You know, ‘You ruin my life and I’ll take my phone’…it’s not all daisies. ”
Enforce the prohibition
LAUSD has allocated about $7 million to schools to enforce cell phone policies that also cover devices such as the Apple Watch and Smart Glasses. Approximately 80% of middle and high schools eligible for fundraising use Yondr pouches, the company said.
Students from Uni High and other schools have broken the rules for the rest of the day for the first time. If they are violating again, their devices will be forfeited – and their parents or guardians will be notified and must obtain it on the specified date.
The final part is important, according to Uni High principal Claudia Middleton. Getting buy-in from parents has helped students to be accountable at home – smoothing the smooth edges of the program’s debut.
Uni High Principal Claudia Middleton, right talks about using the Yondr pouch with students.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The district left a porch and police choreography at the school.
At UniHi, students arrive each morning through the main entrance to the Texas Avenue campus. There, they monitor school staff as they put their phones and other devices in their pouches and seal them. At the end of the day, the unlock base is placed at various exits.
Middleton said Uni High found a way to identify scofflaws. For example, consider the process that took place when students claim they don’t have a mobile phone at morning check-in. Middleton said he contacted the student’s parents or guardian and told them what the teen said. It disroutes some Rule Fruiter.
“We actually told some parents, ‘What?! They have it,'” Middleton said with a laugh.
Three weeks after about 1,400 students began using the Yongdol pouch, the administration said it had confiscated about 15 phones.
Mendoza said her average daily screen time plummeted from about 7 hours to just three hours, but her friends said none of her friends had ever taken their phones.
Senior Uresz Henderson, another student on the Leadership Council, said that while underclassmen may feel the Yonglol program is “random,” juniors and seniors know that “some kind of enforcement is needed over the phone.”
Lennox Junior High School’s student exit class has been using Yonglol pouches since 2022.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
“They definitely don’t agree with that,” Henderson said. “But I understand why it’s happening.”
However, Tucker complained that the ban disrupts classes at schools where cell phones are regularly used. She studied journalism and previously recorded interviews using her iPhone. When the ban was enacted, she had to buy a standalone recorder. “We have to jump through a lot of random hoops,” she said.
Educators saw things differently.
Shortly after the new policy came into effect, Uni High student dean Paul Duke said the teacher pulled him aside and incredibly said the students were actually paying attention to his lessons.
“Teacher,” Duke said, “I’m listening.”
Find out what Lausd is
Lennox Middle School Principal Reset Pichardo spoke about the cell phone tragedy on the South Bay campus as if it were an existential threat.
She said that after returning to in-person learning in the fall of 2021 after the pandemic forced a retreat to distance learning, the phone is a major contributor to an atmosphere where it proved highly toxic to consider leaving work.
“The phone was meant to kill us. It was the worst year of my life,” she said. Then there was a fight.
Lennox Middle School principal Reset Pichardo reached for Yonglu after students’ cell phone use became uncontrollable.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
Students say, “We’ll stick videotapes on each other [fighting] And they’ll broadcast it to everyone,” Pichardo said. “It was terrible. I was like, ‘I’m going to stop.’ ”
Instead, Pichardo contacted Yongdol and signed a contract with the company. The pouch debuted in the fall of 2022 at a junior high school with 1,195 students.
The change was almost instantaneous. The children were increasingly engaged in classes. They socialized more and fought less, Pichardo said. Students shared similar feelings with the times.
“It focuses more on my work,” the girl said.
“If everyone is on the phone, school is different,” the boy said. “There’s more drama and there’s more fights every day.”
The Yondr pouch is stored in a cubby hung in one Lennox Middle School classroom.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
The journeys that have been made at Lennox Middle School over the past three years may give you a sense of what is available for LAUSD schools.
“They’ll roll their eyes at first,” Dugony said. “They resist ideas – they never knew of a world without smartphones. Most of them reluctantly admit that they feel less anxious and not answering their phones after three or four weeks.”
