No phones, enclosed walls, how is this affecting Ben Davis’ seniors of 2025? What do they think about it, and how can the school improve on these in ways to better our senior’s experience? To answer that we ask the seniors themselves. 

We asked seniors Caiden Apodaca, and Jaishawn Ivory, a member of the Ben Davis marching band for their thoughts on how their senior year will be with the new changes with the controversial cellphone policy, and the tighter hallways due to construction  

When interviewing Jaishawn, I asked the question, “What do you think about the construction, and how it’s affecting you?”

“ It makes it harder because people are too crowded, and everyone is being stepped on.” He added, “Them getting rid of that massive space (The commons), it really hinders our ability to move.” 

This seems to not just be Jaishawn. As an active Ben Davis student I have heard many similar complaints about the same topics from seniors, such as the lack of a Senior Cafe. 

“It makes me sad, that sophomore, junior year gets hyped up to be the best year, and yet we don’t even have a Senior Cafe. I’m not calling the line of chairs (in the cafeteria) a Senior Cafe,” Said Jaishawn.

With the new addition of the cellphone policy for the class of 2025 and below in Indiana, I asked Senior Caiden Apodaca and his thoughts on the policy.

“The world has evolved. The people that make these policies didn’t have these things (phones, and headphones), it makes no sense they are the ones to enforce it.”

When Jaishawn, Caiden, and I discussed they talked about the hardest part of it. Which we agreed upon was headphones for most teens. 

“This phone policy addition of adding headphones has made it hard for people who need music stimulation, or no stimulation (noise cancellation).” Said Caiden.

As the final year starts off rough for our seniors with these sudden changes, we can hope that the Ben Davis Administration can accommodate with it being their final year.