In the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, the Seneca Valley School District rolled out an all-new cell phone policy that was periodically evaluated in the Intermediate building last year.

Now, it is being enforced in all schools throughout the district, hoping to see a change in student learning and increased focus. While the change can be beneficial for a lot of students and teachers, there has obviously been up and down opinions from students and teachers alike.

Last week, I had the honor of sitting down with Mr. Bob Ceh, the principal of the Seneca Valley Senior High School, to talk about the cell phone policy, its reception, and the changes that have been noticed by staff and the school board.

The first topic that we had conversed about was the general reception of the cell phone rules from the school’s faculty. When asked about the reception, Mr. Ceh responded, “The general reception of the faculty was positive since this will help the students focus.”

“Heightened focus and strengthened academics,” according to an email sent out to all staff members by Linda Andreassi, the Communications Director for Seneca Valley. The email encloses rules and regulations for the district-wide order on cell phone usage. It also includes punishments corresponding to the number of violations one student has.

The second item of discussion was noticeable changes or outcomes of student learning after putting their phones into the designated phone caddies. To this question, Mr. Ceh said, “The phone caddies, at least according to the staff, have seen a noticeable difference.”

He did mention, however, that it is still early in the year. Significant changes cannot exactly be calculated yet, as we are still in the first quarter of the year, but it is an encouraging sign for the school board, to say the least. Since last year, the district has placed phone caddies or pockets in classrooms. Teachers can assign numbers to students for their cell phones to be collected, from what I have seen in the past year.

Lastly, we talked about another big topic, earbuds. I asked Mr. Ceh about the usage of earbuds during lessons and how much that has stopped since unveiling the new phone collection rules. He had a very favorable and positive response to this. Mr. Ceh said, “What I like about the policy is that the earbuds are now out during the lessons. It can be very distracting.”

For one, I agree with this. Teachers no longer have to completely stop lessons or whatever they are doing because they can hear someone’s music or see their earbuds. That itself can be very distracting to lots of students. With this, students can no longer drown out the information they need, and it can really make Seneca a better place to teach.

Overall, I had a very successful meeting with Mr. Ceh, but he had one quote about the cell phone policy that stuck out. “The policy is like vegetables. Kids don’t want them or don’t want to eat them, but they know it is good for them.” Stay tuned next week for students’ responses to the new policy.