EACH DAY at Granger, before students even get to sit down, their phones are immediately locked — no texts, no TikTok, no music between classes, just silence.

Some teachers think Yondr pouches help students concentrate and stop distractions. But let’s be real — the pouches might be helping, but they also might be making students more annoyed and less likely to show up. Some kids feel like their freedom is being taken away, and instead of paying attention, they’re skipping school altogether. It’s possible that Yondr pouches are fixing one problem, but creating another.

Mackenzie Salazar (12) thinks Yondr pouches help her make real-life connections. “It helps me communicate and be more social with other people instead of always being on my phone. The Yondr pouch helps me focus and stay on top of things like my academics and getting work done in school, and it helps me be more productive and organized during club activities. Personally, I think the Yondr pouches are helping other students like they are helping me, and I think they’ve been good for the teachers, because students don’t want to get caught with their phones — they have to pay attention to what’s being taught in class and stay off their phones,” she said.

The Yondr pouches are handy and iconic. The Yondr pouches are extremely useful and iconic, so useful that kids literally run away from the Yondr pouch policy as much as they can. Although some students like the pouches, most do not.

The Yondr pouches aren’t perfect, and they have their cons. “At first, I thought the Yondr pouches were working very well, because the policy made a lot of kids scared to use their phones, so they had to put their phones away even if they didn’t want to, which could be correlated to Lancer’s academic scores increasing. But it also made students more aggressive, in a way, because when they are caught with their phones, they try to put up a fight or an argument. I believe Yondr pouches are making the situation worse as well because some kids are just skipping school altogether so they can have a little bit of freedom on their phones,” Miley Munoz (11) said.

For most, the Yondr pouches can be inconvenient. “The Yondr pouches help us, but they can also be inconvenient as well.” Kenlie Thompson (11) said. She thinks students should have access to their phones. “The Yondr pouches should be accessible for students to open themselves in case of emergency instead of having to ask a staff member for permission to do it, because there could be school threats and we wouldn’t be able to contact our parents because of the Yondr pouches so it puts the students in danger and makes them more scared as well,” she said.

Whether Yondr pouches are liked or not, they are here to stay, so students might as well get used to them.