Tam high school district decides against expanding cellphone ban with locking pouches

The Tamalpais Union High School District has decided against requiring students to seal their cellphones in magnetically locking pouches during the school day, with officials saying they instead want to work on strengthening the current policy that prohibits student cell use during class time only. However, they left the door open to revisiting the idea in the future.

“I’d like to see the school district move toward trying to get to a phone-free day,” district board president Leslie Harlander said at the board’s Nov. 19 meeting. “I don’t know that Yondr pouches are the answer right now.”

The district had been considering partnering with Yondr, a San Francisco-based company that creates the pouches for about $30 per student, to restrict use from the time students arrive on campus until they leave, meaning students would have their phones in their possession but would no longer be able to access them during breaks.

However, the district board Nov. 19 said it would rather focus on enforcing its current cellphone policy, which was instituted in January. Under those rules, classrooms at each of the district’s five high schools have hanging caddies where students must store phones during instruction while still having access to the devices between classes and at lunch.

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