Los Angeles Times: A Month into LAUSD’s Policy, Students Discuss Yondr
After just one month of implementing Los Angeles Unified School District’s cellphone policy, educators are reporting significant positive changes in classroom engagement and campus climate. The district-wide policy has resulted in 250 new LAUSD school partnerships with Yondr, representing more than 80% of the LAUSD middle and high schools eligible for this funding.
“It’s not the best, but I think it’s for the best,” says Angie Mendoza, a senior at University High School Charter, who reports her daily screen time has dropped from seven hours to as little as three. Teachers are noticing the difference, too, with one pulling aside University High's dean of students to share, incredulously, that "students were actually paying attention to his lessons."
“When I started talking to schools that were implementing [a cellphone ban], I heard from psychologists who were saying that ... fights were down, drug sales were down, and kids were reporting a better school day.”
The transformation is perhaps most dramatic at Lennox Middle School, an early Yondr adopter that began using our program in fall 2022. Principal Lissett Pichardo describes the pre-Yondr environment as nearly unbearable: "The cellphones were gonna kill us. That was the worst year, professionally, of my life."
Since implementation, students have become more engaged in class, socialize more effectively, and fight less frequently.
While some students have attempted to circumvent the pouches, Yondr CEO Graham Dugoni acknowledges these challenges as part of the process.
“We’re not naive,” Dugoni told The Los Angeles Times. “We know that anything we design—and we're constantly making improvements—they're gonna keep finding different ways around it."
From our humble beginnings at a biker bar in Oakland to now serving millions of students in all 50 states and around the world, Yondr continues its mission of creating phone-free spaces where genuine human connection can flourish.
