The Yondr pouches feel a bit odd, right? They have caused quite a stir here at Doherty, where for the first time ever, students have to lock up their phones, earbuds, and Smart watches in pouches at the front door to limit access and distractions. District 11 board members pushed for the policy to tackle the issue of phones being so disruptive and affecting mental health.

The jump to use the pouches has been hard. Junior Toni Garcia Ruiz said, “It was a decent idea, but we shouldn’t have complete restrictions.” Going from full access to phones to literally having them locked up was too fast a change for some.

Some are finding the policy makes it harder to stay connected. Freshman Iris Lund says, “I’d use my phone to text and see where people are because I commonly lose where my friends are.” 

Even the principal was skeptical about the Yondr pouches at first, but then she grew to love them. Will we ever get used to them?

Some of the security guards that do the Yondr checks have jobs that have become more complicated. Not only are they checking IDs, but they are now trying to check for both. Is this too much work for them?

There are a lot of students that strongly dislike the Yondr pouches. But I think the idea is that the implementation was not well executed. I think we should at least have our phones at lunch to text people and stuff like that. But we should not have complete restrictions. 

We need to be trusted to use during lunch, passing periods, and free periods. We should have a way for freshmen to check phones during the day. Administrators need to check to see how we feel about these policies.