LOS ANGELES — The sound of a click has replaced the sound of cellphone notification pings at Animo Pat Brown Charter High School.

Every morning, all 600 students line up outside the school gates and place their phones into green and grey pouches. School staff locks the pouches for the day. Students can’t access their phones until school lets out.

Principal Brian Thomas Reed said locking phones unlocks creativity and connection.

“Since the pandemic, when students came back, it seemed like their relationships with phones had fundamentally changed and the cellphone addiction was real. Teachers had to spend an incredible amount of time policing phones in the classroom, telling kids to put them away, confiscating phones.”

Thomas Reed said the decision to ban them at school was easy.

Since the start of this year, the phone ban has been in place.

Students keep their phones inside pouches created by Yondr and hold them throughout the day.

They are unlocked with a magnet placed by school exits as they leave campus.

When it comes to student safety and emergencies, parents are encouraged to call the front desk. Some students said they were initially skeptical but now agree that the phone ban has been a net positive.

One junior at Animo Pat Brown, Deily Monterroso, said her grades have improved.

“When we first had the ban, I was bummed. I was like my phone is going to be locked away, now I have to be social. I’m on my phone all the time. But now that we don’t have the phones, I interact with others more,” Monterroso said.

Other students, like senior C.J. Johnson, said while there had been a phone ban at the school, it was relatively easy to still look at his phone during class.

“Most of the time, we would be hiding it, or sometimes I wouldn’t use it at all or just use it at lunch or during passing periods,” he said.

Those days are now gone at this school — and Johnson said it has been an adjustment — but one he’s mostly happy with.

“I think it has been a good thing. Me and my friend group realized we love to talk — so we just love talking and have a lot of gossip and a lot to talk about,” he said.

Johnson said he’s also seen an improvement in his grades since the start of this year.

According to a recent Pew Research Study, 72% of U.S. high school teachers say phones in the classroom are a major problem — and many districts across the country are turning to Graham Dugoni and his company Yondr for help. The Yondr pouches are used at Animo Pat Brown and many other schools in all fifty states. He said the name describes their goal.

“The feeling it evokes, what’s happening over yonder, a sense of adventure I hope,” said Dugoni.

Dugoni still uses a flip phone but said he’s not anti-tech — instead, he wants to encourage a more thoughtful relationship with technology.

“It’s my passion. It’s not just about young people, it’s all people. Old people, young people and everyone is equally affected by technology. Maybe the only difference for digital natives is that they have no other frame of reference,” Dugoni said.

Back at Animo Pat Brown, Principal Reed has a somber warning about his view of phones in schools.

“We are going to look back at cellphones in schools as our smoking on airplanes moment. It’s just insane,” he said.