Cole Rogerson works on a graphic organizer during a seventh-grade English language arts class on Sept. 25, 2026, at Hinckley Big-Rock Middle School in Big Rock. The school banned cellphones and aims for their students to do more work on paper. | Dominic Di Palermo/for the Aurora Beacon-News
By Molly Morrow | Aurora Beacon-News
Before Hinckley-Big Rock banned cellphones, things looked a lot different at the district’s three schools. Students were using their phones throughout the school day, and there was more technology-based discipline and concern about kids recording each other without permission, school leadership says.
Even during lunch, students would often be on their cellphones.
“They would sit next to each other, but they wouldn’t be interacting with each other,” Becky Lauer, Hinckley-Big Rock High School’s principal, recalled.
In the fall of 2024, when the district implemented a strict no-cellphone policy, that all changed.
It was an adjustment — and an awkward one, at that, according to Lauer. But, in time, the high-schoolers got used to it.
Nowadays, the high school cafeteria’s a lot louder. But it’s a good kind of noise, she says.
Hinckley-Big-Rock was among the Illinois school districts that banned or restricted cellphone use well before the passage of state legislation that will prohibit students in Illinois public schools from using cellphones throughout the day starting next school year.
Brantley Karns, right, works on a graphic organizer while paraprofessional Rebekah Hett helps Micah Simonson with his work during a seventh-grade English language arts class on Sept. 25, 2026, at Hinckley Big-Rock Middle School in Big Rock. | Dominic Di Palermo/for the Aurora Beacon-News
But Hinckley-Big Rock decided to take it a step further this year, shifting away from all students having their own personal computers and instead housing district computers at school for them to be shared. In tandem with that change, administrators and teachers describe a general reduction in computer use in the classroom district-wide.
Generally speaking, students are now doing lots of reading and assignments on paper. Rough drafts of essays are being handwritten, with only the final copy typed up. The school is even looking to switch back to paper standardized tests, staff say.
Handwriting’s back, too, with more focused instruction than had been offered in recent years.
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Related: “Barrington parents ask District 220 to reduce students’ screen time”
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