Cherry Hill East student Melanie Pedersen says the 10 students chosen to discuss the district's phone ban with Gov. Mikie Sherrill did not fairly represent the student body.
Pedersen, a managing editor at Eastside, the school's student newspaper, wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday, Oct. 25 that the roundtable participants were drawn largely from the Superintendent's Student Advisory Council and skewed heavily in favor of the bell-to-bell personal internet-enabled devices (PIEDs) ban. She argued the group "can only represent the top 20% of their schools, the rest being left without a facilitated opportunity to share their voice."
Sherrill visited Cherry Hill High School East on Thursday, Oct. 22, for a closed roundtable and press conference on the statewide ban, which took effect when the school year began in September. Education Commissioner Lily Laux, Superintendent Kwame Morton, East Principal John Cafagna and West Principal John Burns also attended, Eastside reported.
Seven of the 10 student participants came from East and three from West. Pedersen wrote that all were upperclassmen heavily involved in their schools, including student government presidents and Board of Education representatives.
The roundtable produced overwhelmingly positive feedback, according to Eastside's news coverage. Students told Sherrill the ban improved their mental health, social lives and grades. One participant, East student Anaya Jangha, acknowledged afterward that the group's uniform enthusiasm may have limited the conversation's usefulness.
"I think … she has a good insight now as to how students feel, but I think all of us were also very positive, so … it was hard for her to get a good depth of what she needs to work on," Jangha told Eastside.
Pedersen argued the roundtable missed key criticisms. She listed unaddressed concerns including students feeling more isolated after the ban, continued device use despite the policy, dependence shifting to school-issued laptops and gaps in regulating communication software.
She proposed that the district could have opened a poll to all students before the event and selected participants who offered the most substantive criticism, rather than relying on the advisory council.
No response from the district, the governor's office or any of the administrators present to Pedersen's critique about participant selection appears in available public records.
The statewide bell-to-bell ban, signed into law in January 2026 by former Gov. Phil Murphy, required New Jersey's nearly 600 public school districts to restrict personal internet-enabled devices throughout the school day, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Cherry Hill had already adopted its own phone restrictions during the 2024-25 school year before the state mandate took effect.
Pedersen wrote that for a policy affecting more than 3,000 students, the district should have taken additional steps to capture a broader range of perspectives before the roundtable.
