Students in Cambridge Public Schools had to surrender their phones during class periods last fall. This year the policy at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School will apply “bell to bell.”
Students will be required to secure their phones throughout the school day in a Yondr pouch, a lockable bag designed to limit use of outside devices, interim superintendent David Murphy said at an Aug. 5 meeting of the School Committee.
The new protocol follows a June 3 committee order that the district would assess the feasibility of extended phone restrictions.
“It is not just about the dangers and the negative implications to having a smartphone attached to the palm of your hand,” Murphy said at the meeting. “It is about the importance of the time that we have available to us to educate students.”
High school principal Allan Gately Gehant attested that although last year’s restrictions were effective at reducing phone use, they did not prevent students from taking phone breaks throughout the school day, and the collection process often cut into instructional time. Neighboring Somerville may encounter some of the same issues, as the school district has introduced this year policies similar to Cambridge from last year: “Students will be asked to place their cellphones and headphones in a designated location when they enter the classroom, or to keep them in their bags,” according to the Somerville High Student handbook.
The Yondr pouches are designed to give students a sense of control over their devices while removing the burden from teachers to enforce phone policy.
“In the absence of a schoolwide protocol like what we are planning for, we are essentially delegating this responsibility to teachers,” Murphy said. “Anything we ask teachers to do that is not about delivering instruction diminishes the delivery of instruction.”
Students grades 9-12 will get their own pouches that can be unlocked at designated bases near classroom exits, Gehant said. Adapted pouches will be made available to students with medical conditions and in other extraordinary circumstances that require them to check their phone throughout the day.
The “bell to bell” initiative is a part of a larger wave of enhanced phone restrictions throughout the country, the AP reports.
Enforcing a “bell to bell” protocol on the CRLS open campus, which allows students to leave the school grounds during lunch and other free periods, may bring challenges, Murphy said.
“There’s a lot of things that distinguish us from other school districts that put us in a better position to implement this protocol. The open campus is not one of them,” Murphy said.
There will be accommodations made to the protocol during lunch periods, specifically for students leaving campus, Murphy said.
Committee member José Luis Rojas Villarreal raised questions of disciplinary action during the open portion of the meeting, adding that even with the more robust policy, there remain ways for students to violate the protocol.
There are escalating steps of discipline established for students who don’t adhere to the policy, Gehant said. If a student violates the school’s policy repeatedly, their phone will be kept in the principal’s office for the day.
This post was updated Aug. 25, 2025, to correct that the photo does not show Yondr bags.
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Bravo. Exactly the right thing to be doing. Now work on reducing use of AI so students build up their critical thinking skills.
(And extend the bell-to-bell policy to middle schools too, obviously.)
Smoking cigarettes was less destructive to overall health and far easier to remove from the schools. And then came vaping. Gotta love progress. Good luck getting the tiktok addicts off their phones. Here in Medford, I saw three clearly under 13 people sitting in a “study” room, gleefully watching prank videos via one girl’s phone. I support the teachers but seriously parents …..where are you?
I wish someone would ban me from using my phone.
Barko here are three tips I use–
1. Turn off the fingerprint lock on your phone, so you always have to key in a passcode instead.
2. Set your phone display to greyscale. (If you take a lot of photos, they’ll all still be captured in color.)
3. Get a dumb-phone. Mine allows texting, email, and maps; but no web browsing. It also allows calls, but nobody calls me.
Maybe I’m just confused about the pouches or the name of the policy…”bell to bell” means start to end of school day? Or just during class times? If the pouches can be unlocked at the classroom exits are students still not supposed to use them between classes?