A North Texas high school locked up cellphones. Here’s what happened

By Talia Richman

Staff writer

Dec. 28, 2024

Students streamed into Lake Highlands High School on a recent morning, briefly stopping in front of an assistant principal.

“Good morning! How are you?” the administrator asked while she locked each teenager’s cellphone in a gray pouch.

The greetings and sealings continued until students marched off to first period.

Principal Kerri Jones looked around the entry way in her sprawling campus of nearly 3,000 students. High schoolers were talking and joking. They looked each other in the eyes instead of burrowing into their screens.

“The hallways get loud,” Jones concedes. “But it’s a good loud.”

Lake Highlands is in its second year of requiring students to store their phones in Yondr pouches, which are magnetically sealed at the start of the day and unlocked by special devices at dismissal. They’ve become a model for other districts considering cellphone-free policies.

Richardson ISD was an early adopter of the pouches, and schools across the country are now spending millions on them. Meanwhile, some state leaders want to consider a statewide cellphone ban in classrooms.

Read the full article here.

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