Anyone who attends a D11 school knows the expectation the district has for schools, implementing Yondr pouches within schools. However, you may be left to question if that expectation is truly valid and agreed upon by the schools being affected. The Yondr pouch is, essentially, a lockable fabric case designed to hold technology such as smart phones and headphones. It allows students to keep their device on them at all times, but not being able to use it in a classroom setting. The overall goal expressed by the district for using the Yondr pouches was to limit phone use in the classrooms to help increase students’ performance growth. These pouches may seem like a near magic solution, but like everything in life, it comes with a price tag. Yondr pouches were roughly thirty dollars per person, resulting in the district spending over 500,000 dollars to provide the schools with enough supply for the number of students. The district gets funded around 450 million annually; out of that number Doherty gets funded 18.3 million annually. I personally feel that the district could have saved the money in a better way, especially considering the cost of building repairs being up to 422 million dollars, looking at Jenkins as an example.  

Beyond building repairs, schools are suffering with funding in general. Doherty High School as of the year 2025 did not have enough funding to do certain events such as the annual Winter Formal. Now, I am not blaming the entire reason for lack of funding on the Yondr pouch purchases, however I feel that it did become very hindering to activity funding, and other needed payments. 

 Student engagement events are forced to suffer, and looking at all the loss, is the pouch worth it? Being a student, I can easily say no, as I ideally don’t want to not have access to my phone throughout the day, and it is impacting. Interviewing some of the student body at Doherty, it is noted that other kids feel that same way in some regard. “I haven’t seen any benefits personally,” states Lola Camacho, a freshman at Doherty.  Lola brings up another issue to the use of the Yondr pouch, and that is not being able to stay in touch with parents or loved ones. Something could happen in or out of school and having that method of communication is crucial. “I feel uncomfortable not having my phone on me, ’cause it’s locked in a pouch all day, and I can’t contact my parents if there’s an emergency, or if I have to get picked up for any reason, and that has been an issue before…”, Lola Camacho explained further. Another big reason for phones to be used is payment methods. Many kids go off campus every day to purchase lunch or even need to purchase something in the school like a snack from the vending machine. Apple Pay or electronic pay of some form has become the new norm. “I pay for my lunch through my phone,” quotes Serenity McKasson, a Junior at Doherty.  

Aside from student issues, we can also look at the difficulty the staff of Doherty High School had during the start of implementing the Yondr pouch system. “I think the hardest part at first when there was the expectation that we need to check every single child and make sure they put their phone in the yondr pouch, which is just unreasonable.” Says Ms. Ricky, a Doherty security guard. She notes that some downsides to the system would be “…The money spent and the ineffectiveness.”  

However, with all the negatives, there are still some positives. Ms. Ricky mentions phone use going down in classrooms. With the Yondr pouches, students are more afraid to whip out their phone as much as they might normally without the rules being forced on students. Ms. Hart, one of the school’s deans, shows enthusiasm about the Yondr pouches as she’s noticed it has helped the school overall saying, “I have seen an increase in student growth academically.” Which was ultimately the districts’ main goal of implementing the system, meaning the struggle is not going away anytime soon.  With this information, how do you feel about the implementing of Yondr pouches? Do you think anything could have been done differently?