Some schools are pulling the plug on student phones
Hutchison School students grab their cell phones after school Friday, Aug. 30. The school instituted a locking box system where all students put their phones in the morning, then pick up at the end of the day. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)
Dr. Kristen Ring walked into the cafeteria at Hutchison School one day in March and saw a table of adolescent girls, certainly a familiar sight at the all-girls private school in East Memphis.
But what bothered Ring, Hutchison’s president and head of school, was that each girl had a phone in her hand. They were still chatting with each other, but just barely. The phones were the focus, not the faces around the table.
“It made me sad because the phone created a barrier from authentic and meaningful connection that they didn’t recognize,” said Ring, whose school has about 800 students from preschool through 12th grade. “We wanted to think about what we would change if they didn’t have access to a cellphone.”
That was a turning point, Ring said, in her school’s new policy banning cell phones during the school day. Beginning with the 2024-25 school year, all Hutchison students must put their phones in a locked box at the start of the day and retrieve them from that box at the end of the day.
No phones during the school day, period.
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Jody Callahan
Jody Callahan graduated with degrees in journalism and economics from what is now known as the University of Memphis. He has covered news in Memphis for more than 25 years.
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