STUDENTS have very strong opinions about the Yondr pouches. So far, students have only heard good things from the administration, but there’s a variance in opinions. Not everyone is going to like the same rules, and not everyone will have the same opinions. 

“I don’t like the use of it at lunch, and I see the potential for it to cause problems. As well as the administration coming into classrooms for random checks and changing the rules. When they came in for a check, they sent my phone to the office and made my parents come and get it,” Oscar (11) said. 

However, that was his first offense, he was just supposed to put his phone in the pouch. That raises a question: are they changing the rules and not telling anyone? If they were, shouldn’t the people know about it? School protocol says punishment for the first offense is simply to pouch the phone. If the phone is seen again, the teacher brings it to the office. A third offense requires students to have a meeting with the administration about phone violations, and then their parents are required to come to pick up the phone, and finally, parents will have to meet with the administration.

So with that being said, is the administration simply disregarding what the rules were before? 

Other students, like Ifo (12), also “I don’t agree with the Yondr pouches. Administration has too much control, and there are too many classrooms having to do with it,” Ifo (12) said. 

“I have problems with the durability of the pouches. I know multiple people who have broken their pouches,” Patrick Moore (11) said.

This leaves a few questions: how much do students really know about this new policy? What is the administration truly trying to accomplish by taking phones away during school? Are the pouches actually as durable as the administration claims they are? If Granger is the guinea pig for this potentially new statewide phone policy, how will other schools in Utah adapt this policy to fit their student body? Does Granger’s administration really have our best interests at heart with these pouches?

Should students take a pause and evaluate this route, rather than simply being along for the ride? If students are to get the most out of these new phone policies—not just Yondr—students have to take these questions seriously.