Last year, students used their cell phones daily, whether it was to text their moms, find music for the latest PGTV episode, or get a great quote for the yearbook. Whatever the task, students needed their phones throughout the day.

That’s not the case this year.

With the new phone ban this year, most classrooms have found it to be beneficial. However, three classes have had to make major adjustments. PGTV, journalism, and art have had to figure out how to function without the use of phones.

“For PGTV, we used to use our phones for adding music to the videos and to prompt our lines,” senior Sophie Douglas said. “Now we actually have to use a whole new website for our music and we’ve been having to write out our lines. It’s a lot harder.”

While PGTV was adjusting by using pens, paper, and a new website, the journalism team had to buy brand new equipment to fit their needs.

“Since we can’t use our phones, we’re having to use voice recorders to get quotes and interviews from people, which is new and something that none of us have practiced doing. It’s a little harder, and it’s taking us longer to get into the groove of things,” senior Addison Bobo said.

With all the music and audio problems, a new issue arrived for the art students. Students used their phones last year to look at Pinterest and to take photos for their still life creations.

“We used our phones to look at inspiration on Pinterest,” sophomore Ayunnah Davis said. “It’s been a lot harder without our phones, but we have access to Pinterest on our computers now.”

All three departments were struggling after the phone ban, however they have found new ways, equipment, and websites to keep their classes going. Despite these efforts some classes are still struggling to work around this phone inconvenience.

“Working around the phone band has been harder than what we anticipated, because with art, we use the phones considerably for a couple of different reasons, ” Art director Melissa Manning said. “Taking photos, having high resolution photographs, and our class sizes are so big that even if we had five or six cameras, it would take us days to get some things done.”

Although these obstacles seem never ending, most teachers are hopeful for the skills students are learning. Without the phone distractions the rate of work being completed has increased.

“We’ve adapted pretty well to not having phones.” Journalism director Charla Harris said. The iPads work just as well and it’s easier to read the transcripts. Students are stepping up to learn how to take photos, so it could be worse. People are focused on what they are supposed to be doing instead of Tik Tok and Instagram.”