Dear Hill Country Families,

If you have middle or high schoolers in your household, I imagine you’ve had some interesting–perhaps lively–conversations about our updated phone policy this school year.

Last December, we announced that all middle and high school students with personal devices would store and lock them for the duration of the school day, beginning this August. This decision was made after 18 months of research, made in an effort to better embody our core values, pursue our mission, and promote student well-being.

“So how’s it going?” you might rightly wonder. As we approach the 90-day mark this fall semester, I want to share some observations about the impact of going phone-free as a school community.

We’ve done our best to be realistic and transparent from the start: all systems attempting to regulate students’ access to devices are imperfect. Whether reflecting on our past approaches at Hill Country or visiting with other schools about their policies, all have vulnerabilities. We strive to minimize these and address issues as they arise. Still, rather than fixating on perfect compliance, I’m amazed and grateful for the overall impact this transition has had on our community.

The change isn’t most obvious in classrooms, where students couldn’t access phones before. I’m curious about the long-term academic effects, though, particularly if students’ fluid intelligence and working memory improve with reduced device access in a classroom setting. For what it’s worth, we have seen cell phone-related instances of academic dishonesty plummet. With phones locked away, this particular temptation has been largely removed.

The most striking changes on campus, however, have been in all the non-academic spaces of school life. No longer fixated on the handheld screens in their palms, students make eye contact and converse during passing periods. Community Time and lunch overflow with laughter and spirited conversation. Students are playing games, sharing stories, going to club meetings, and, if they need to work on schoolwork, getting more accomplished with greater productivity.

And yes, I think our students are having more fun. Gone are the days of students silently scrolling through feeds at their lunch tables, faces down and fixated on glowing screens. Here are the days of real community time. Students who may have retreated into their devices in the past are now more present with one another, more engaged in the life happening around them.

I’m not naive enough to presume our current approach is perfect, universally beloved, or friction-free. As with any major school initiative, our leadership team will continue to refine and improve based on feedback and what we observe with our teachers and students. Nevertheless, it’s hard to overstate how thankful we are for the cultural impact of this change. I’m excited to see our students’ experiences continue to be enriched as we find new ways for them to engage meaningfully in learning, fellowship, and discipleship, rather than defaulting to the comforting distraction of their devices when they don’t know what to do with a spare moment.

One final thought: I love how this approach holds all of us accountable to a more embodied presence with one another–educators included! In her book Restless Devices: Recovering Personhood, Presence, and Place in the Digital Age, Felicia Wu Song laments: “It is difficult to maintain the disciplines that we know are life-giving and even more difficult to resist the old habits of scanning the headlines in our feeds. The inner conflict we experience is an age-old one, famously summed up by Saint Paul, ‘I do not understand my own actions… For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do’ (Romans 7:15, 19).”

The challenge to be present and trade lesser things for better opportunities may feel daunting at times. However, the beauty is that the solution to our digital discontent may very well be to exist in community and spur one another on, just as God intended (Hebrews 10:24). Thank you for your partnership in this endeavor–not only at school, but at home.

Grateful for your support,

Jacob Lindsey, High School Principal