Upon returning from Winter break, students will not be allowed to use any personal devices from 9:30am to 4:18pm, including lunch and in between classes. This change stems from the Virginia General Assembly passing a law to ban personal devices, such as phones, during school hours mandated by former Governor Glenn Youngkin.

As of now, the LCPS school board is discussing how to effectively implement this policy as well as methods to enforce it. Principal Dr. John Brewer said, “It’s not wise to set limits that you cannot enforce… enforcing this policy during downtime in the hallway, in the cafeteria, and the restrooms is going to require [a lot of] resources.” 

Enforcing this during lunch period is reportedly going to be very challenging given the ratio of students to staff on lunch duty. “It’s going to take some serious thinking about how we’re going to do that,” Dr. Brewer said. 

According to April Chandler, Algonkian School Board Representative, the board has considered using phone pouches but has not come to an agreement on the use of them. The new policy will also restrict the use of smartwatches. 

“This law is definitely more restrictive, and so that I’m not opposed to it, but I do worry about how the implementation will go and whether or not kids are going to be able to self regulate enough to keep it off and in their backpacks. Especially when we know not all of our schools have enough lockers for every student to [keep them in,]” April Chandler said.