In light of Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent signing of Assembly Bill 3216 restricting cell phone use during school hours, cell phone bans have sparked intense debate in California. To gauge opinion and perspectives at AHS, as well as the potential impacts of cell phone restriction, Arcadia Young Democrats held its Cell Phone Ban Community Forum on Mar. 26 at the Arcadia High School’s (AHS) multipurpose room (MPR).
In the weeks prior to the event, posters around campus displayed a QR code link to a survey for students to fill out, in order to understand the different attitudes toward cell phone use in schools. The survey asked students interested in participating (as well as teachers and parents) to give ratings and opinions on related issues, including AI-use, cheating, focus, and their trust in administration and their peers relating to cell phone usage. Those who filled out the form were also sent a further email containing briefing information and a breakdown of the event.
On the day of the event, immediately after school, students lined up in front of the MPR to be assigned a discussion table for the event based on grade and age. Each table had 10-12 students from varying grade and age groups, and had briefing materials and data available in a packet given to each student
Once students settled into their discussion tables, they were given time to get to know each other before the event started. Many students were able to recognize classmates and friends that shared a similar interest in having discussion, which further enhanced their experience at the community forum.
During the discussions, students were encouraged to discuss the topics in the briefing materials packet, from AHS’ current phone restrictions to the harm of phone use at school. Students gave a rating to each opinion presented in the packet and provided reasoning to support their thoughts. After the topics had been gone over, each discussion table was tasked with thinking of one question to ask the expert panel. Moderators were assigned to keep each table on task and offer different angles.
“There were a lot of moving parts, including approval by administration, scheduling, reserving the location, reaching out to experts to join our panel, recruiting volunteers to help, and allocating funds for our resources. On the day of, the volunteers spent time setting up the event to ensure that we ran a successful forum,” said senior Patrick Αndrianopoulos, who is a member of Arcadia Young Democrats and moderated the discussion tables.
For one final discussion, students were joined by the two experts via Zoom. Consisting of AHS alum Travis Chen, cofounder of SoundMind (a music therapy platform for students), and Sabine Polak, co-founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement, the panel showcased the two opposing sides of the phone ban argument.
While Polak believed that the banning of cell phones would likely hinder important social emotional learning, which were “very important [skills for students] to become thriving and happy adults,” Chen expressed the benefits of having a device in a larger campus such as AHS.
Overall, the forum served as a way for students to share their thoughts and expectations for the upcoming statewide phone ban.
Arcadia Young Democrats plans to provide survey results to the AHS administration, and it is still to be seen whether they will take this into consideration.
“This was an actionable way to provide students a true seat at the table amid the development of policies that will affect them every school day,” added Αndrianopoulos.
