English trainer Jocelyn Medawar has observed a brand new vibe at Harvard-Westlake College this college 12 months: Higher college college students are chatting within the halls and greet her as they enter class.
They not have their “faces glued to a display,” stated Medawar, who has taught on the elite non-public college for 35 years. “The entire feeling on campus has typically modified.”
At a time when college cellphone bans or limits are the regulation in California public faculties and in not less than 34 different states — a rising nationwide motion to get distracted college students off their gadgets and centered on studying — Harvard-Westlake has discovered a solution to implement their restrictions by turning to — what else? — a cellular app that partially locks down telephones and flags the entrance workplace when college students try to interrupt the foundations.
College students in grades 10 by 12 should set up a custom-programmed app known as “Opal” that blocks a listing of social media and gaming apps that Harvard-Westlake educators have recognized for now as scofflaws throughout college hours: TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Discord, Threads, Pokémon Go, Roblox, Conflict Royale and Reddit.
College students on the Studio Metropolis campus are allowed to maintain their cellphones with them and may use them to contact mother and father or hail a experience solely in an administrator’s workplace.
College students stroll to class at Harvard-Westlake College in Studio Metropolis. A QR code signal permits them to examine of their cellphones earlier than class.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Instances)
But when a pupil disables Opal to make use of a banned app, college officers are notified on an workplace dashboard. The app represents one technique designed to shore up the loopholes which have emerged in different common enforcement instruments, together with lockable magnetic cellphone pouches that may be damaged into or outright bans that sneaky college students skirt.
After the primary semester below the brand new guidelines, Harvard-Westlake college leaders reported promising outcomes — and a few college students stated they not are reflexively reaching for his or her telephones and are sleeping higher.
“The general course of … has made an influence,” stated Jordan Church, dean of scholars at Harvard-Westlake higher college.
Throughout lunch, “college students are engaged,” he added. “They’re speaking with one another, they’re having enjoyable, having fun with their time, and cellphones aren’t part of that course of anymore.”
Safety guard Earl Saunders checks pupil telephones as they enter Harvard-Westlake College.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Instances)
Telephones keep in backpacks
As college students arrived on campus on a latest morning, they pointed their cellphone cameras at massive QR code posters positioned round entrances. The scanned code blocks the forbidden apps till the top of the college day.
Earlier than Opal, the higher college didn’t have a coverage governing cellphone utilization, with lecturers allowed to set their very own class guidelines. Throughout free durations, college students can be distracted by their telephones, as a substitute of working or partaking with friends, Church stated.
A number of college students stated they most popular their college’s strategy over the magnetically locked Yondr pouches utilized in L.A. Unified and different massive public college districts, as a result of their telephones usually are not utterly shut down.
“Locking away telephones might be a harmful mistake,” stated sophomore Miro Katan, who beforehand anxious pouches may hinder him from texting his mother and father throughout an emergency.
A number of college students, together with sophomore Alexander Ahn, commonly use the app after college.
“It’s improved my research habits and time administration expertise,” stated Ahn, who used it to free himself of distractions whereas making ready for a contemporary world historical past examination.
One pupil, senior Sydney Assil, was detached. “I’m not bothered a lot by Opal,” she stated. “I discover it somewhat bit pointless as a result of I don’t actually have a tough time following the cellphone coverage.”
Assil helps cellphone restrictions and felt the characterization of scholars ignoring each other in favor of scrolling on telephones was overblown. “I don’t suppose we’re that degree of zombie,” she stated.
The ban hasn’t eradicated social media use, and a few college students use their laptops to entry Snapchat, Assil stated.
However junior Simren Bindra, a pupil council member who examined Opal final spring, stated she’s seen adjustments. College students can not scroll as they stroll, she stated.
“It’s rather a lot higher that we’re studying to handle distraction than having our cellphone utterly stripped away,” she stated.
A pupil checks in together with her cellphone at Harvard-Westlake College. The college requires college students to scan a QR code once they enter and examine in to an app that blocks them from utilizing some social media and gaming websites.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Instances)
A testing floor for the app
Opal was initially constructed for working adults to enhance productiveness by turning off distractions, however is discovering a distinct segment amongst highschool and faculty college students, who make up many of the app’s new installs, stated Chief Government Kenneth Schlenker.
When Schlenker obtained an electronic mail in early 2025 from Ari Engelberg, Harvard-Westlake’s head of communications and strategic initiatives, inquiring whether or not the corporate had a product for educators, collaborating on a brand new utilization appeared like a pure subsequent step.
Harvard-Westlake requested pupil council members to attempt the Opal app within the spring. Suggestions was constructive, so the corporate constructed Opal for Faculties, a paid model that additionally offers directors a dashboard to trace rule compliance.
“It’s way more efficient for the college to have the ability to know if a pupil isn’t complying and is ready to interact in a dialog with them somewhat than … a blanket ban,” Schlenker stated.
Church, the Harvard-Westlake dean, stated the college handed on Yondr pouches after studying teenagers may purchase instruments to bypass the locks. He stated he hoped the app would assist college students self-manage their cellphone use.
“Each instrument has a work-around, and youngsters are good, so we haven’t actually made Opal be the enforcer,” Church stated. The college could use the dashboard to establish rule-breakers sooner or later, however for now, lecturers and employees are merely confiscating telephones on sight, he stated.
Engelberg acknowledged some college students sneak glances at their telephones. “Our purpose is to not make it to zero,” he stated. “Our purpose is to convey it to a greater steadiness.”
Though college students have adjusted effectively to the foundations, some initially feared the college may use Opal to see into their cellphone screens, stated junior Charlotte Im, one other pupil council member who examined Opal.
Opal doesn’t give faculties the power to view a pupil’s exercise inside apps, Schlenker stated. The dashboard, constructed to resemble an attendance sheet, reveals when college students go surfing and off Opal and whether or not they tampered with the college’s block settings.
The council held an meeting in September to handle privateness issues. “[A]fter that, no one actually had any … unfavourable issues to say,” Im stated.
A Harvard-Westlake pupil scans a QR code. The college’s new cellphone restrictions require college students to scan a QR code to activate an app that blocks social media websites together with Instagram and Snapchat.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Instances)
Extra faculties search center floor
Schlenker stated that non-public faculties have been the primary to make use of the app, however that public faculties may additionally buy it. Opal’s fundamental app is free to obtain, however some options require a paid subscription. College plans begin at $20 per pupil per 12 months, Schlenker stated in an electronic mail.
San Francisco’s the Bay College had volunteers attempt the app within the fall and plans to pilot Opal for Faculties — the model with administrative controls — with a bigger group within the spring.
Benjamin Bingham, the Bay College’s know-how director, stated the college remains to be mulling over choices. It tried going phone-free for every week however discovered that college students relied on the gadgets for note-taking and scheduling, and a few mother and father had been uncomfortable with no direct line to their teenagers.
The college sought an choice that will enable college students to have telephones and cut back distractions, Bingham stated.
Bingham has additionally been in talks with corporations Bloom and Unpluq, which make faucet playing cards and key chains blocking sure apps. Value has been a key consideration for the college of roughly 400 college students, which dominated out Yondr pouches.
Bingham declined to share particulars of Opal’s quote, however stated it was “considerably much less” than Yondr’s, which averaged about $35 per pupil. A Yondr spokesman stated in an electronic mail that its packages usually value $25 to $30 per pupil within the first 12 months and that pouches usually are not offered individually.
Medawar, the Harvard-Westlake trainer, stated that the brand new app has made her job simpler and that she not makes college students deposit telephones in a caddy initially of sophistication.
“I don’t need to be as a lot of a policeman,” she stated.
