Stanhope Elmore recognized as Alabama's first Yondr phone-free school

At Stanhope Elmore High School in Millbrook, a phone-pouch rule that began as a discipline fix in the 2022-23 school year has become a statewide milestone. Yondr representatives visited the campus on April 22 to recognize Stanhope Elmore as the first school in Alabama to use the company’s phone-free pouch system.

The policy is simple but strict. Students lock their phones in Yondr pouches when they arrive and must show proof of the pouch before entering campus. If a student forgets or loses a pouch, the phone goes to an assistant principal, and any lost pouch has to be replaced. A May 2024 board report said the school also makes exceptions for medical needs, including students who use phones to manage diabetes. The pouches are locked to wall-mounted magnets and opened at the end of the day, a process Principal Ewell Fuller said takes less than eight minutes and does not slow dismissal.

Fuller said the change came after seeing phones drive problems that had little to do with learning. He said students were videoing teachers, recording in inappropriate places and creating openings for discipline problems and online bullying. After the policy took hold, Fuller said in 2024 that disciplinary actions, fights and disturbances dropped sharply and the school atmosphere improved. He also said students were more social without phones, including talking more at lunch and even playing Uno. Teachers are told to call administrators if phones appear in class, a move meant to preserve instructional time and keep enforcement off classroom shoulders.

Current principal Wes Dunsieth has backed the system and said it works because the whole school supports it from the top down. The approach has also drawn attention beyond Elmore County, with other school systems across the country reaching out to Fuller and districts including Montgomery Public Schools later adopting Yondr pouches. Fuller told lawmakers in February 2025 that Stanhope Elmore had already "been there, done that" as the Alabama House passed HB 166 by a 79-15 vote, a bell-to-bell cellphone ban that would require local boards to store student phones during class hours.

The debate has only widened. Pew Research Center found in 2024 that 72% of U.S. high school teachers said cellphone distraction is a major problem in their classrooms, and supporters of state limits have pointed to storage tools like Yondr pouches. At Stanhope Elmore, the question for other schools is whether the gains in discipline, attendance and attention outweigh the daily tradeoffs of locked phones, replacement pouches and the extra work of keeping the system running.