Kyla, a principal at EPIC, argues that blanket phone bans ignore how central phones are to students' lives. Effective policies need clear communication and alternatives, not just prohibition. One-size-fits-all rules fail because they don't account for how students actually learn.
Kyla, you run a school that's one to one device school. And as I understand it, you have been arguing that these folks have it wrong, that a blanket ban doesn't make sense. So at a high level for right now, help us understand why that's been your position.
As a principal of EPIC and a former assistant principal of a large urban school and a parent of a generational generation Alpha student. People can't think that a broad brush of no cell phones is like the way to go. But what we're learning is that the children that we service right now have not ever not had a phone in their hand. And so being mindful of your audience, being mindful of who you service, you have to be clear about that. And so that's why it's not the right way to go to ban the cell phones without any clear communication expectations and a buffer or filler to replace something that's a part of people's lives.
