It’s 4th hour, the call comes from a teacher and Associate Principal Britt Haney is immediately walking through the halls and into a class room where he confiscates the next phone.
“The Honeymoon is over,” Haney said. “There were a lot of kids wanting to get on their phones yesterday, about 30 something.”
The lunch bell rings and as Haney looks down at his watch it reads,
10,000 steps.
That’s the amount he would normally go home with last year and now he’s gotten the number by lunch.
“I know for the students the days are slow, the days are not slow for me, I look up and it’s already 2:40,” Haney said.
For the administration and teachers of Northwest the changing phone ban policy has altered their everyday routine.
On March 19, 2026 Gov. Laura Kelly signed House Bill 2299, which bans students from using electronic communication devices during school hours.
The Kansas phone ban follows a trend of states like Texas and Utah, who have already implemented a similar ban.
“The focus of the state is removing distractions from the classroom,” Haney said, “so they’ve kinda done a two part attack.”
Part 1, remove all phones from school. The state rolled this restriction out at the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year. Students cannot have phones on their person from the first to the final bell of the school day. In the law it is mandated that students keep their phones in their locker, car or at home.
Yet, according to the Northwest Passage’s poll on Instagram 66% of students say they still use their phones in class.
That’s the reason Haney is back and forth between classes everyday.
Part 2, remove all social media requirements through the school. Teachers can no longer message students on social media platforms such as GroupMe, which many sports and school activities have used religiously in the past. Now, with many forms of communication banned, teachers have had to adjust.
Specifically, Theatre has moved towards their student leadership team running communication.
“Occasional reminders or things like that get lost, but I do have students who are running a chat platform to help one another out and clarify issues,” Theatre teacher Shawnasea Holst said.
With the implementation of the phone ban unexpected problems have started to arise. Like how there were no clocks in the mall.
“They took out all the clocks because kids had clocks in their phones,” Haney said, “Then we found out the first week of school that these kids don’t know what time they were supposed to be going back to class.”
So now the mall has a clock over the admission office and in the main cafeteria area.
Though not everything has changed. At lunch Haney is still patrolling the mall looking for kids keeping their heads down or suspiciously scrolling in their lunch box.
“It’s the same thing as trying to keep my seniors in open lunch and my juniors not going to open lunch,” Haney said. “Just part of the job.”
When a student is caught with their phone they will normally give excuses.
“My alarm went off in my bag.”
“My phone fell out when I was grabbing something.”
“I wasn’t even on it!”
Yet, because of the law, the punishments have become concrete.
“First offense is the phone goes into phone jail and students pick it up at the end of the day. Second offense is the phone gets confiscated and a parent has to pick it up,” Haney said, “Offense 3, we’re going to work on a plan with the kids, and that’s where they check it into the phone jail first thing in the morning and pick it up at the end of the day.”
At exactly 2:40 the attendance office window with the words “Hello Fall” stuck on the glass is pulled open. An immediate line of students forms and Shannon McLeroy, the Northwest clerical aid, is out of her office chair and furiously writing on sticky notes.
“Name,” she asks.
The student responds.
“7,” she tells Attendance Clerk Jamie Prosser.
Prosser hands her the phone, McLeroy hands it back to the student.
They do this everyday, around 30 times a day.
Name, number, hand phone back, repeat.
The phones are kept in a silver steel box with a clear door. It’s locked during the day and kept on the far left side of the attendance office under a shelf. Each slot has a blue number above it which corresponds to the number in McLeroy’s spreadsheet.
Occasionally a student will be on their second offense and they will tell them to talk to an administrator, sometimes that means a parent will have to take it. Sometimes that means ISS or OSS.
“It’s going very smoothly,” McLeroy said. “We try and do it quickly for the kids on the bus, or the kids who have sports.”
The process is normally done within five minutes. For McLeroy and Prosser it’s not that much of a change of pace.
“It’s like monitoring a lost and found,” Prosser said.
While in other parts of the office the pace seems to keep increasing.
“It’s hectic,” said Haney. “There’s always something to do.”
Along with the phone ban administration has been adjusting to using a new bus system, the attendance office moving and the new parent communication system, ParentSquare.
“There’s a lot on everyone’s plate,” said Haney. “But the admin team is staying and working together and I’ve been really proud of the staff and the follow through.”
