Carey Gallagher began her senior year at Yonkers Middle High School in New York this week alongside 1,438 students, now all required to place their cellphones in a locked magnetic pouch.

Yonkers School District purchased Yondr phone pouches for about 11,000 students to comply with the statewide mandate that bans phones in classrooms . The pouch, which students carry with them, is locked and unlocked using magnets affixed to the entrance of the school and outside the main office.

Gallagher, 16, said she had already started to put limits on her phone use this summer when she found out the pouches would be required at school, and she was "partially excited," but also worried about "how everyone else was going to take it."

She said some students welcomed the idea, but others plotted how

See Full Page