Harford public high school students won’t be able to have cellphones in the classroom starting next school year and can only use phones or smartwatches at their lockers between classes or at lunchtime.

The new policy, approved unanimously by the Board of Education Monday night, changes this year’s rules that allow high schoolers to have cellphones in the classroom as long as they are turned off and put away. Board members said that policy was getting too difficult to enforce.

Starting next school year, high school students must store cellphones or other portable devices in a locker during class time. High schoolers can wear smartwatches in the classroom but they must be deactivated.

“We feel like it is flexible enough but enforceable enough, too,” said Mike O’Brien, the school system’s executive director of Middle and High School Performance. “If the kids can’t bring them to class, it is going to be much (easier) to enforce.”

Board of Education President Aaron Poynton said the policy revisions will ensure students are focused in the classroom.

“If your cellphones are going to be in your pocket, you’re going to reach for it,” Poynton said. “We have students for six and a half hours of instruction — we don’t have them for a lot of time. They need to be focused.”

Gabrielle Moore Brooks, student legislative affairs coordinator for the Harford County Regional Association of Student Councils, created a survey about the policy revisions, which received about 246 responses from students in nine high schools and four middle schools.

“Ninety-two percent of (surveyed) students are not in favor of this changed policy,” Moore Brooks said during the board meeting’s public comment portion Monday night. “I received over 100 thoughtful comments where many students expressed that stricter policy would lead to more resistance and rule breaking, while others emphasized that phones are essential for safety and communication with family.”

She explained that the survey data also indicated that the majority of students believe the former device policy, which allowed students to have cellphones in the classroom as long as they were off and away, was being followed and that the change was unnecessary.

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