- Granger High's no-phone policy shows positive results, reducing fights and failures.
- Former Principal Howe reports increased socialization and fewer classroom disruptions.
- The policy will continue under new leadership, despite the cost of magnetic pouches.
WEST VALLEY CITY — Utah's largest high school piloted a program in which it stopped taking away students' cellphones and instead had students put them in a pouch for the day. The biggest question after one year of doing this: Is it helping?
Tyler Howe, former principal at Granger High School, said he's thrilled about the outcomes he's seen.
"I have never had a school year where I saw so few phones out in the classroom," Howe said.
Students still found ways to work around the pouch, but Howe said the ultimate goal was to have a bell-to-bell, phone-free space for students, and he saw that.
"We saw a significant bump in socialization during lunchtime," Howe said. "We saw kids reading books, we saw kids bringing board games and card games."
Howe also noticed a change in attendance, student failure rates and even the amount of on-campus fights.
From his own data, Howe noted 79 fights in the first three quarters of the 2023-2024 school year without the phone policy.
With the phone policy instituted for the 2024 to 2025 school year, Howe said he recorded 39 fights for those same first three quarters.
"Having phones secured away much more of the day seemed to have a correlation to the safety of our campus," Howe said.
Failure rates, according to Howe, at the end of the final quarter of the 2024 school year were roughly 570 out of nearly 3,000, or 19%. Whereas the final quarter of 2025 was about 489 out of nearly 2,700 students, or 18%.
"I think parents could see the value of not just the academic goals of school but the social goals of school as well," Howe said.
The magnetic phone pouches are expensive, but Howe said the outcome has been worth it so far. Students can plan on bringing their magnetic pouch with them when they return to campus on Wednesday, August 13.
Howe is no longer the principal at Granger High School after accepting a new position with the Granite School District as the Assistant Superintendent. The new principal will continue the magnetic pouch, bell-to-bell, no-phone policy.
