In Upper School Meeting on Monday, May 11, 2026, Upper School Principal Rachel Stone encouraged students to step back from their devices on Tuesdays and instead connect with the broader community. Dubbing the initiative “Take Back Tuesdays,” Stone suggested students keep the dining hall, library, Stu, assemblies, class meetings, and campus walkways phone-free spaces on Tuesdays.
When considering Take Back Tuesdays, Stone heard “a lot of chatter about the faculty cell phone committee.” She decided to hold a Stables meeting debating the cellphone ban and noted that “students [were] worried” about the possibility of a ban. However, imposing a phone restriction was important to Stone because COVID had created a problematic relationship between students and their technology.
Stone hoped that Take Back Tuesdays, which featured “board and card games in the Stu,” would encourage students to “get off social media, meet some new community members, invite peers to meals in the dining hall that we do not know well, and say hello to one another as we walk about campus.”
However, student participation varied. In a form sent to the Upper School, 30 out of 54 respondents admitted to not following the Take Back Tuesday guidelines. Even so, 88.89% of those students said “Maybe” or “Yes” to following Take Back Tuesdays in the future. Students also had opinions about where on campus should be phone-free: 92.59% said class spaces, and 90.74% said assemblies. Phone-free guidelines in other spaces met more resistance: 68.52% of respondents supported phones in the Stu; 74.07% supported them in the library; and 62.96% supported them along campus walkways. Peter Geroukos ’29 shared that “a phone ban in the Stu would be unhelpful and would make life harder.” Stone had originally suggested the library be a headphone-free space on Tuesdays, but she changed her mind after students reached out to her, and cited the importance of headphones for their studying.
Students who were open to the idea of Take Back Tuesdays followed the rules in a way that worked for them. Tracey Brown ’29 “made an effort to not use [her] phone [on Tuesday]” but “didn’t [follow] the headphones rule because [she] felt [she] shouldn’t give up music when being alone.” Isabel Luo ’29 chose not to follow Take Back Tuesdays because she believed that “everyone deserves to choose [when to go on their phones], and if you can’t control yourself, it’s your own fault, not the phone’s.” Kamali Reddy ’29 thought that “people consider [Take Back Tuesday] a joke,” citing a Wicked Sketchy skit about the initiative. For a phone policy to be effective, she believes it must be “enforced,” because “people can just not follow it” without assistance.
Reddy also felt concerned about student safety. She recalled that “there have been a few occurrences where [she needed] to call campus safety, so if [she] didn’t have a phone, then that would not have a good outcome.” Eli Berk ’26, who once wrote a letter to Stone petitioning for a future phone ban, stated that he is “confident in the ability of Milton’s faculty and administration to rework safety protocols to support whatever form of phone ban is enacted.” Stone acknowledged the “questions about REACH [for boarders],” but suggested that the school could “put the NFC tag on the IA.”
Still, many students and faculty members see disconnecting from technology as important. Faith Ojugbana ’27 believes that “phones not only affect connections, but also impact how we operate on a daily basis.” For History Teacher Yao Tan, who sees “a lot of students disengaged and filming tiktoks” in the Stu, there are “so many missed opportunities for friendships [when you’re on the phone].” She added that “sometimes, taking a break from [her] phone makes [her] relaxed.” Moreover, Tan believes that it is important for teachers to “model by example” and “set clear expectations on phone use in class.”
In the future, Stone is considering a “bell-to-bell ban,” which would ban students from using their phones during the academic day. She is discussing such a ban with Head of School Alixe Callen ’88, and Stone called the situation “complicated.” Berk, who supports a phone ban, said that he thinks “there’s a lot of benefits that comes with living your life without constantly staring down at your little magic rectangle.” To those who didn’t participate in Take Back Tuesday, he raised the question: “How do you know you need your phone as much as you do?”