In August of 2019, administrators at Woodbridge High created a new phone policy, made new ways for students to check into tutorial and allowed students to use YouTube.

The school decided to regulate cell phone usage to ensure that students will focus on school work rather than on their electronic devices. These devices are no longer allowed during class and must be stored in a phone pocket at the beginning of each class period.

“If you look at discipline data from last year, the number one issue that we’ve had, and it’s been for many years, are cell phone violations and not only was it the number one, but it was only increasing in frequency,” Principal Christopher Krebs said.

Not all students feel that the new phone revision is a beneficial change.

“I feel like the phone policy is unnecessary because it should be our personal choice to choose when to use them. We should be able to have the option [to]self-regulate when we use our phones,” freshman Victoria Cheng said.

Checking into tutorial is now digitized. To sign up for tutorial, students make an appointment on Teach More, an online platform that allows administrators to keep track of attendance. It also helps teachers make appointments with students.

“[Last year,] we had the most tardiness and truancy [during] tutorial. We also [couldn’t] track students last year because of the paper system and [weren’t able to] assign students to a tutorial,” Krebs said.

In addition, the Board of Education for the Irvine Unified School District (IUSD) decided that students should be able to access educational videos on YouTube. This gives students the chance to brush up on topics they do not understand and watch videos relating to their homework. Students and staff need to complete a YouTube filter training in order to access the platform.

“I am now reassured that if I miss a topic in class, I can always have access to various resources that can help me succeed,” sophomore Elyse Arragon said.