Are Smartphones Allowed in Your Schools?

The answer regarding Alpha Schools

This is another one of my guest posts. This one is from MacKenzie Price, the founder of Alpha Schools. (See a prior commentary of mine for more info.)

She has a Substack (Future of Education) where she answers questions posed to her regarding Alpha Schools. I think this question has broad interest — and her answer is somewhat unique…

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Phones in schools are tricky. Everyone thinks the answer is either “ban them completely” or “let kids figure it out.” Both are wrong.

The “ban-everything” crowd acts like we can pretend smartphones don’t exist. Good luck with that. These kids will have phones in their pockets for the rest of their lives. Shielding them completely just delays the problem.

The “hands-off crowd” is worse. “Kids are digital natives, they’ll adapt.” But they won’t. They’ll just get addicted faster. Being born around technology doesn’t mean you know how to use it well. Rather it means you’re more vulnerable to it.

Here’s what actually works: treating phones like what they are…

Powerful tools that require training.

Think about it this way. Phones are like giving a kid a chainsaw. Incredibly useful tool in the right situation. Also can absolutely wreck you if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So, at Alpha, here’s how we approach cell phone use with our students.

K through 5: No phones at school. Phones aren’t evil, but little kids have zero capacity to self-regulate with something designed by engineers to hijack attention. The average child gets their first smartphone at age 10. We’re not pretending that’s not happening. We’re just not letting it happen inside our walls during learning time.

Middle School: Where the training starts. Students check their phones in every morning. During academics, phones stay locked away. But (and this is the part people miss) students earn phone time in the afternoons. It’s supervised and low stakes. We’re not hiding the thing. We’re teaching them to use it without losing themselves to it.

Research shows that at least 50% of teens feel addicted to their phones. We’re trying to interrupt that pattern before it sets in.

High School: More freedom, more responsibility, and more consequences. At this age, students are older and more mature — so we treat them like it. We trust them more, allow them more agency. But if someone starts missing assignments, getting distracted during learning blocks, or struggling to stay focused, then boom. Phone jail. They’re back to checking phones at the front desk like they did in middle school. (And what high schooler wants to be treated like a middle schooler!?)

Alpha’s Guides are Key

Our guides play a huge role in this development. I think that’s the secret ingredient nobody talks about — not rules, but relationships. Instead of ruling over high schoolers (who are perfectly capable of making good choices, by the way) with an iron fist about phone usage, our guides engage with them directly:

• How are you using your phone?

• Does it help you or does it pull you away?

• Is it a tool in your hands or is it running you?

• How does scrolling on your phone make you feel, really?

• Are you proud of that?

This is a level of technology-coaching that, unfortunately, not many people will have in their lifetime.

So we make sure that Alpha students do.

The average American “tween” (ages 8-12) spends 5 hours and 33 minutes on their phone daily, not including school or homework. For teens (13-18), it skyrockets to 8 hours and 39 minutes. These numbers are shocking. And we’ve all watched a kid disappear into a screen.

It’s scary. No one wants that to be their kid.

Our whole philosophy is pretty simple: phones are distracting (obviously), but they’re also not going away. So instead of pretending they don’t exist, we’re teaching kids how to actually use them well. Focus first, then learn to integrate technology in a healthy way.

Alpha has been doing this longer than most schools have even been talking about it: before all the studies and bans and congressional hearings and think pieces, before everyone suddenly discovered that maybe handing a 12-year-old unlimited internet access isn’t ideal.

But I think banning phones entirely is ridiculous. They exist! They’re useful!

It’s up to us to guide, coach, and teach our kids how to use powerful things without hurting themselves.

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