A magnetic pouch is key to enforcing school cellphone bans. Kids are getting around it

The bells jingle and the high school students gathered their stuff and headed to the door. As students were drowned in the classroom, a strange new voice filled the long corridor: the hustle and bustle of hundreds of students.

each other.

Before Los Angeles unified school district mobile phone ban It will take effect in mid-February, and mobile phones are everywhere on campus. no longer.

To enforce the new policy, University High, as well as about 250 Lausd schools – turned to a local company: Yondr, a manufacturer of lockable bags commonly used in movie premieres and live shows to create a distraction-free atmosphere.

Small pouches sealed with magnets are the most popular choice in schools that have new policies. Some schools gave teachers’ cubs to let students store equipment. Others only ask them to be powered down and stored. But if there is a symbol of suppression, it is Yondr’s gray neoprene bag.

The ban affected about 800 campuses and has been subject to Teachers and administrators – One person told The Times that “since the invention of the cell phone” is the best thing. In the rollout, they cite anecdotal evidence and data that show Unrestricted access to smartphoneswhich helps increase Anxiety, depression and other student issuesespecially since the pandemic at the age of 19.

“When I started talking to the school that was being implemented [a cellphone ban]I heard from psychologists, they said…fights are defeated, drug sales go bankrupt, and kids report a better school day. ” Solution Create a campus without phones.

But what are the students in college? Sortle Community Schools known as Uni High, considered for a month in the ban?

“It’s not the best, but I think it’s the best,” said Angie Mendoza, senior and member of the school’s student leadership committee, which conducted a leisure report with Melvoin earlier this month. “Sometimes the lectures can be a little boring, you have that desire to scroll on Tiktok or Instagram, but it’s not the best habit. My grades have been better because I keep following in class.”

Others on the council also said they are learning to comply with the new rules. But not every student is so charitable.

“After allowing my phone to stay for 12 years… have they just taken it away for three months?” asked Madison Thacker, a senior at Van Nuys High School Performing Arts Magnet. “They should start at the beginning of the school year. Students don’t like the general change. Whatever you do, kids will find solutions.”

Indeed, students secretly talked about the dark art of circling around. Some people simply told school officials that they don’t have cell phones. Others have found that bait can be placed in small bags, filling their real equipment with secretly used equipment throughout school.

“As of today, I don’t know anyone put their phones in a bag,” said Thacker, 17. Her school’s Instagram account. “The kids are wearing old phones, they put them on the burner phone, in the battery pack. And most popular: the calculator.”

Then there are various ways to break into a sealed bag: by magnet, with brute force, or with pencil to open it – a method revealed in the types of YouTube and social media videos.

Yondr CEO Graham Dugoni was not surprised by the student initiative. He said the Mar Vista-based company discussed their violation technology with teenagers so that the company could perfect its pouch design.

“We are not naive,” Dugoni, a former professional footballer, launched Yondr in 2014. “We know anything we design – and we are constantly improving – they are constantly looking for different ways.”

From a bicycle bar to a school

Dugoni said the “Crystallization Moment” led him to discover that Yondr happened at the 2012 music festival.

He noticed that other concert participants recorded a drunk without his consent. Dugoni believes that the party should have been a safe space where revelers can enjoy themselves without being photographed. The incident triggered introspection.

“Smartphones [were] Just came out, the internet was clicking on another equipment,” Dugoni said. “That’s what I started. [ask] …What impact does this have on people? ”

Dugoni, 38, said he began to imagine “equipment-free” environments where people could get rid of “tugboats and pulls of modern life.” He began to perfect the idea of ​​a lockable bag and began to build prototypes using materials he soured from a hardware store. Dugoni’s first client was a bicycle bar in Oakland, which held a burlesque show. Then there is a school in San Bruno.

In 2015, the manager of comedian Dave Chappelle called to change Yondr’s trajectory: Performers want to use the pouches in the show, Dugoni said. Not long after, Chappelle became an investor in the company. The association with comedians gave Yondr an improvement: soon, including local schools, including local schools. In the years leading up to the Lausd ban, about 30 campuses in the area decided to start using Yondr bags.

Dugoni said that from the beginning of 2024, public policy support for phoneless space has increased significantly, leading to school districts across the country Research institute mobile phone ban. Today, in all 50 states, about 2 million students use Yondr pouches.

Dugoni said his company heard students directly: Many people thanked Yondr for returning to their school days so they were “in fact able to make friends.” But he admitted that the company also received “hate emails.” “Like, ‘What are you doing?’ Dugoni said of the remains. “You know, ‘You’re ruining my life, take my phone. ‘ …not all daisies. ”

Implementation of the ban

Rolls Approximately $7 million allocated To get schools to buy equipment to enforce mobile phone policies, the policy also covers devices such as Apple Watch and Smart Glasses. The company said about 80% of middle and high schools that are eligible for funding are using Yondr bags.

Uni High students and other students who were found to have violated regulations for the first time lost their phone calls for the rest of the day. If they are found again, their equipment will be confiscated – and they are notified by their parents or guardians and will need to be retrieved on a designated day.

Claudia Middleton, head of Uni High, said the last part was key. Getting a buy from parents – so that students can take responsibility at home, too – helps smooth out the program’s debut.

The area left the choreography of pouches and policing to the school.

Every morning, at Uni High, students arrive through the main entrance of the Texas Avenue campus, where school staff look at their phones and other devices and seal them. Ultimately, the unlocking foundation is located in various exits.

Middleton said Uni High found a way to identify scofflaws. For example, the process carried out when a student who checked in in the morning claimed that he did not have a cell phone. Middleton said contacting the student’s parents or guardian and telling the teenager what he said. This eradicates some scope of the rules.

Middleton smiled and said, “In fact, a few of us have parents saying, ‘What?! They have,'” Middleton said with a smile.

Middleton said the government seized about 15 phone calls within three weeks when about 1,400 students started using Yondr pouches.

Mendoza noted that her average daily screen time dropped from about seven hours to just three hours, and she said none of her friends took their phones away.

Uleses Henderson, another student on the leadership committee, said lower graders might feel that the Yondr program is “random”, but juniors and seniors have mastered “the cell phone must have some type of law enforcement.”

“They definitely disagree with it, but people know something about how it happens,” Henderson said.

However, Thacker complained that the ban had subverted courses on her school’s regular use of mobile phones. She studies journalism and has previously used her iPhone to record interviews. When the ban was in progress, she had to buy a standalone recorder. “We have to skip a lot of random basketballs,” she said.

Educators have different views on things.

Shortly after the new policy came into effect, Uni High student dean Paul Duke In fact Pay attention to his course.

Duke said, “The teacher is listening.”

Look at the future of Los

Lissett Pichardo, principal of Lennox Middle School, talked about the scourge of cell phones on her South Bay campus, as if it were an existing threat.

She said that after the pandemic forced remote learning, and after returning to face-to-face learning in the fall of 2021, cell phones are a major contributor to making the atmosphere proved so toxic that she believes leaving work.

“The cell phone will kill us. It was the worst year of my life,” she said, explaining that while digital devices have been banned, the use of digital devices has been rampant. Then there is the battle.

Students “will record each other’s videos [fighting] They’ll blow on everyone,” Picardo said. It’s horrible. I was like, “I’m going to quit. “transparent

Instead, Pichardo contacted Yondr and reached an agreement with the company. Its pouch debuted in the fall of 2022 at a secondary school with 1,195 students.

The change is almost instantaneous. Children are increasingly attending classes. Picardo said they socialized more and fought less. Students have similar views to the times.

“This has made me focus more on my work,” said a girl.

“If everyone was on the phone, the school would be different,” said a boy. “There would be more dramatic and there would be fights every day.”

Over the past three years, advances in Lennox Middle School may give a sense of what Lausd Schools stockpile.

“They roll their eyes at first,” Dugoni said. “They would resist the idea – they never had a world without a smartphone. Most people would reluctantly admit after three to four weeks that they weren’t that anxious, so they like to be out of the phone.”