ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Leaders at Albuquerque Public Schools believe they have solutions to what they describe as the issue of phones in the classroom.

Gabriella Blakey, the new APS superintendent, believes phones don’t serve a purpose in school.

“I think they definitely serve as a distraction,” she said. “We really want to limit the social media and the bullying and things that distract students from learning during the classroom time.”

APS has a policy in place that doesn’t allow students to use their phones during instructional time. Andrea Carabajal, the principal at Taylor Middle School, believes that isn’t even enough.

“We’ve put together a system to ensure we’re maximizing instructional time by using these boxes here for the phones that the kiddos bring to school,” Carabajal said.

She said with the learning loss students faced after the pandemic, they felt they had no other choice than to try something new to put the phones away. That’s when the box came into play in 2021.

Don’t worry, students do get their phones back at the end of their last period.

“It has become the culture of our school and what we do and students know to expect it. And parents now know to expect it and it’s evolved from there,” Carabajal said.

Despite students pushing back, she and other leaders say they’ve seen a positive impact.

“There’s always a groan. There’s always a groan at the beginning of the year and there’s always a little bit of pushback,” Carabajal said.

“You just see a lot of what we lost in COVID with that or lack of socialization. We see it gaining back because it’s not a forced upon. It’s just it’s non-negotiable at this point,” said Martha Holloway, the assistant principal at Taylor Middle School.

Carabajal said if they find a student with their phone, they confiscate it for a period of time. She hopes APS considers implementing this system in the future districtwide.