District continues 'off-and-away' cell-phone pilot; students and staff report mixed roll-out

The Issaquah School District reported progress on a pilot that discourages phone use during instructional time at the secondary level, but students and staff told the board the pilot’s rollout produced uneven experiences across schools.

District presenters said the pilot’s core expectation for secondary schools is that phones be “off and away” during instructional time (including time spent in hallways while class is in session). Elementary schools are using an “away for the day” approach suited to younger students.

Student trustees said early compliance complaints faded as the school year progressed, but implementation differences remain. At some schools teachers require students to place phones in classroom “cubbies”; others ask phones kept out of sight in backpacks. “At the beginning of the year, it’s definitely very shaky... but I just feel like it’s that, like, kind of fear aspect, which is why a lot of students... comply,” said student representative Krish during the meeting.

District staff said the change was intentionally structured as a developmental approach and that they expected higher numbers of recorded technology violations immediately after implementation. Superintendent remarks and staff follow-up said they will decide whether to embed the rule into the district’s acceptable-use policy (part of the EVP that parents see annually) or to place it in a separate regulation such as a WSSDA model policy.

Board members urged clearer, uniform implementation across secondary schools. “I was really hoping and expecting by May… that we wanted to end this year and walk into next school year with whatever we needed to explain to everyone because I think we’ve been given pretty clear feedback,” a board director said, noting teachers’ frustration at being left to enforce inconsistent building-level approaches.

Why it matters: District leaders presented the policy as an effort to protect student well-being and classroom engagement. Students and teachers told the board that, while some classes and schools have made the change routine, variability across buildings undermines clarity for students and staff.

Next steps: District leaders said they will (a) determine whether the policy will be an acceptable-use regulation or a separate WSSDA-style regulation, (b) publish clear guidance to parents and staff during the summer, and (c) monitor infractions data year-over-year to measure implementation effect. The superintendent suggested comparing counts of device-related disciplinary infractions this year with next year as a metric of implementation success.