Over the past several years, the use of personal electronic devices have been a distraction to the learning process and the development of the whole child here at Maryvale, especially at the secondary level. Our leadership teams have been reviewing our policy on the use of personal electronic devices during the school day in order to balance the need for advanced technology in the classroom and brain development.

As a result, Maryvale Middle School has an "away for the day policy" in regards to personal electronic devices. The “away for the day” policy means students will put such devices in their lockers for the entire day. Students may use their devices during passing time with teacher permission, if they need to contact a parent and/or guardian. Additionally, most of our classrooms are equipped with phones that can make outside calls. Students can use these phones to contact parents and/or guardians with teacher permission. Conversely, parents can call the main office in the event of an emergency and we will communicate with your child as necessary.

We discuss this policy and what it means to students in the beginning of each school year and we remind students of the policy as needed. In the even that a student is using their phone without permission during the school day, the following actions will be taken.

1st Offense: Device is confiscated and returned to the student at the end of the day. 

2nd Offense: Device is confiscated and must be picked up by a parent or guardian from the main office.

3rd Offense: Same as above. In addition, the student must turn in their phone to the main office each morning and can retrieve it a the end of the day for a period of one month.

4th Offense: Same as above, except the student must turn in their phone to the main office for the remainder of the year.

The purpose of this policy is to minimize disruptions to the educational environment for students and teachers. In order to ensure that students are still getting experience with how technology can benefit their learning, we will issue individual devices (Chromebooks, tablets, etc.), that are monitored and filtered by the school district. In providing that level of technology support for students, we feel it prudent to begin an “away for the day” policy for the upcoming school year, where students will lock their PED devices in their lockers for the school day.