WEST VALLEY CITY — Utah’s largest high school piloted a program in which it stopped taking away student’s cell phones 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 lunch time,” Howe said. “We saw kids reading books, we saw kids bringing board games and card games.”

Howe also noticed a change in attendance,

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