The new 2024-2025 school year brings lots of new opportunities and new moments, but one thing Colonial Forge is leaving in the past are cell phones.
Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, started the movement for a cell-phone free high school education. Leaving it up to individual school divisions to have the final say.
The Stafford County School Board decided to completely erase the usage of cell phones from the morning bell until two o’clock rolls around.
While in previous years if students were caught using their cell phones when they shouldn’t be, they were simply told to put it away. This year, if students are caught, faculty seals their phone in a locked pouch, requiring parental guardians to come to school and get it unlocked for their student.
With the implementation of this policy, students cannot keep record of memories from the school year.
A long time “Championville Pep Rally” tradition of singing “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey and raising phone flashlights in the air and swaying them to the rhythm of the music is now disrupted by the new cell phone policy.
The phone flashlights have been switched out for glow sticks, a dull replacement compensating for the loss of phones.
The new “glow stick tradition” has raised some issues. Glow sticks are being thrown around in the darkness of the gym at peers and teachers.
Addi Bergo (‘26), junior class officer said “not being able to use our cellphones during ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ made it less fun, people were throwing them at each other and getting hit in the eyes. It wasn’t the Forge we are used to,” Bergo said.
The dull replacement of glow sticks doesn’t have the same effect that the phones have, bringing energy in the pep rally down.
Seniors are especially affected by the policy, as it’s their last year of high school and will graduate without the pictures with their friends participating in the “Championville” traditions they have grown accustomed to over the years.
“I can’t take photos of my senior year. I’m gonna miss out on all the memories. I hate that I can’t take photos of me and my friends when there’s downtime in class,” Issa Sanchez (‘25) said.
Not only are fun times and memories with friends cut off, there is also a severe change up in the classroom. Countless amounts of teachers are changing up the way their classes are operating.
Teachers who have relied on students being able to use their phones for lessons in class are now struggling to come up with phone-free lesson plans.
Classes like Journalism, Art, TV & Media Production, etc. are struggling to find new ways to operate their classrooms. No more phone interviews, taking pictures of art, or creating and producing TV Media.
Ms. Samaria Moss, a journalism and yearbook adviser at Colonial Forge says “it has been a little difficult, the students have been finding different ways to do the interviews, mostly on the Chromebooks, which have not been the best.”
The quality of work in classes has decreased from the loss of cell phones and has made teachers’ lives even harder.
“It has made things in my class a little difficult,” Ms. Moss said.
With the loss of phones affecting students’ connections and classroom experiences, it also has an impact on students’ connections with their family.
In the past, students could send a quick text message to their parents, asking simple questions like “What time are you picking me up?” or “Can you drop off my lunch?” but now, students must go to the office to call their parents and ask them for such miniscule tasks.
Erasing phone usage in the schools has only complicated things, as now the office is being bothered with excessive calls from parents, classes are forced to change their course, and seniors are missing out on their last year of high school memories.
