CATS: Community Aimed Toward Success. Wilsonville High School WildCATS are propelled towards school-focused success, ensured by the prohibition of cell phone usage during class time. Due to apparent cell phone addiction, students inherently turn to these devices in class instead of their teachers, or their work. 

Administrators at Wilsonville realize this weakness in the younger students and hope to aid them by removing their access to cell phones, which works to increase focus in class, remove distractions, and improve social/emotional well-being.

 Therefore, cell phones are strictly banned during class time. Phones must be off and kept in the student’s backpack or a classroom phone pocket, and they are not to be seen in the hallways, bathrooms, or any area within the school building.

Although this may seem to be a harsh protocol at first glance, even students are aware of the exponential benefits that may be catalyzed by these rules.

 “At first it kinda seems mean to not let kids check their phones, but I understand how it will help us be more focused on school work in class,” a Wilsonville student, Norah Arthur, states. She understands that although it’s sad to give up phones, the phone’s negative impacts are worth attempting to subside. 

Cell phone’s detrimental effects spread further than Wilsonville High School, affecting schools across the nation. However, the rigid prohibition regarding phones in schools, antithetical to the persistently rising cell phone addiction, has decreased since the cell phone’s birth, until school’s return after COVID-19. Statistics show that, in 2009, cell phones were prohibited in 91% of American public schools, which fell to 66% in 2015.  

Although statistics show light restrictions, it seems to be a common trend across the nation to start reinforcing cell phone restrictions for students on all school campuses. Governor Gavin Newsom in California has also hopped on this trend, signing legislation to limit smartphone usage on school campuses, effective July 1st, 2026. 

This ban is more strict than Wilsonville’s, requiring that students’ phones must be stored from the first bell to the last. Despite technical differences, every ban arises due to the same concerns: A student’s focus and their social/emotional well-being. 

=Wilsonville High School principal Kelly Schmidt notes, “Teens spend 9 hours a day on devices…there are correlations between time spent looking at phones and reports of teen depression.” 

Mrs. Schmidt and the administration team are keeping the students’ well-being at the center of this movement, despite a popular belief that this new cell phone policy is not necessary and students would be much happier with their phones in class. 

While the aspect of instant gratification and the ability to be distracted on phones may supply the short-term happiness that these students refer to, the long-term negative impacts outweigh the positive. 

“I mean the ban makes sense, but I also just really like my phone, and it’s my property,” Finley Blankenship, a junior at Wilsonville explains.

So, as kids experience withdrawals from their phones, they may experience these negative side effects they are concerned about. However, removing phones from the school setting will ultimately benefit interpersonal connection and success in school by removing the ‘cellphone drug’ from being so easy to get a ‘hit’ of in class, discovering happiness in bigger things.