Lucy Peterson/The Aspen Times
When Aspen High School students returned to school on Wednesday for the 2024-25 school year, something was missing from the classrooms and hallways: their cell phones.
Just weeks before the start of the new school year, students were informed that cell phones would be banned on the Aspen School District campus during school hours – even during lunch, recess and free periods. The decision came after months of discussions to address what school administrators said was a growing problem of cell phone use that was disrupting classes and leading to increased cases of cyberbullying in schools, exacerbating a mental health crisis.
During school board meetings in the spring and a town hall meeting on cell phones with students, parents and staff, district leaders were unable to reach consensus on how to address the cell phone problem. But over the summer, the district decided to implement a ban. In early August, families were notified and school-specific information was provided on how the ban would go into effect and what disciplinary action would be taken for violations. Students caught using their cell phones will have their devices confiscated and stored in the offices, where their parents can pick up the phones until 4 p.m. each day.
Now students must navigate the new school year without cell phones – a new challenge for students whose entire lives seem to rely on their phones. District leaders said the ban will eliminate distractions in the classroom and give students a new way to connect with one another.
However, some students are frustrated because they are not trusted to use their cell phones responsibly.
“I feel like we’re being patronized a little bit. We’re not given any responsibility or trust in the school, and I think that takes away students’ trust in the teachers and the school itself,” said Clare Williams, a senior at Aspen High School. “We all have full-time jobs in the summer, we live independently, and then we come here and we’re not allowed to use our own phones, which have become a very important part of our daily lives – not because we’re teenagers, but because we’re people living in a society that has created a dependency on cell phones.”
In a letter to families announcing the move, school principal Tharyn Mulberry said the goal of eliminating cell phones was to “create an environment where students can fully engage in their classes, participate in discussions, and focus on their studies without being constantly interrupted by notifications.”
Mulberry, who took over as district leader in July, said one of his priorities as superintendent was implementing a districtwide cellphone policy. Previously, each school had its own approach to handling cellphones in the classroom, but the district had no way to enforce a uniform policy across all three schools.
While policies vary slightly from school to school — Aspen Middle School students must leave their phones in their lockers, while Aspen High School students can leave their phones in their backpacks — enforcement and disciplinary actions are relatively consistent across the district.
Several high school students The Aspen Times spoke to on Wednesday said they felt their opinions were not taken into account in the decision to ban cell phones.
Colby Vanderaa, a student advocate for the ASD Board of Education who has been talking with district leaders for months about a new cellphone policy, said some students felt blindsided by the ban. She was also frustrated that the decision was made over the summer when students were not on campus to participate in the conversations.
“They made the change at a time when there is no feedback from students because we are all on summer vacation and don’t know what is going on,” she said.
Several students pointed out the positive aspects of cell phone use in school and the disruption that a cell phone ban would cause. Students can communicate with parents, coaches and student groups through their phones, and many of them use their phones to check their class schedules, they said.
Information sheets on the new policy state that students who wish to contact their parents during the school day can do so by calling them from their school’s office, and vice versa for parents who wish to contact their children.
“I think more people are disappointed that the school doesn’t understand the positive benefits of (cell phones), whether it’s looking at our schedules so I know where I need to go, so we all know where we need to go,” Vanderaa said. “I’m really excited to see how homework goes because in my literature class and a lot of my science classes, we all had to take pictures and use them for presentations or lab work and different reports, so I’m excited to see how the school is going to handle that.
“It just makes a lot of really productive things difficult,” she added. “It’s not even like, ‘Oh, I can’t be on Instagram’ or anything like that. It’s more like, ‘I don’t know where I’m going because I can’t look at my schedule unless I want to dig my Chromebook out of my backpack.'”
Although students were dissatisfied with this regulation, many of them still saw advantages in it – they just wished that more discussions would be held with students about its implementation and the disadvantages relevant to them.
District leaders hope eliminating cell phones will contribute to a more vibrant school environment and a healthier learning environment. Teachers and principals have previously pointed to the district’s outdoor education program as an example of what a cell phone-free environment can foster. Each year, students go on a week-long outdoor education trip where cell phones are not allowed. Teachers and principals say it’s one of the best weeks of the year, and the cell phone-free environment contributes to that.
Still, it will be an adjustment for students to navigate the new school year without having access to their phones during the school day.
“I don’t think we benefit from perspective. We didn’t really go to school with a cell phone ban – this is our first day. I went maybe four hours without a cell phone and I think we young people are biased in that regard,” Williams said. “But I think it’s not just a cool tool; I think it’s just as important as having a car. In our society, we’ve built an infrastructure around these devices that we’re now taking away from students.”
