Is the Milton Administration Over-Reaching?

By TMP 44th Editorial Board

With the beginning of a new school year, students and faculty can expect minor changes. However, this year, we are confronted with a particularly major new policy: check-ins via a Reach Student Life Management System. Newcomers may find daily check-ins embedded within our institution, while they disrupt returners’ usual routines. The justification is as follows: “There are 700+ reasons why we take our partnership with your parents/guardians as gifts of trust and as the highest of professional responsibilities. Those 700+ reasons are you. If we don’t know that you are in our care, we cannot affect your learning, your experience, or your safety.” This statement from the Office of Student Life stems from Milton’s responsibility as a private institution to take care of its students and ensure their safety and well-being. Nevertheless, this level of oversight is unprecedented, posing the question of whether this system will prove feasible. We believe that Milton’s administration may have overstepped by implementing the Reach system, which fails to incentivize students to properly follow these policies while increasing phone use and further burdening faculty.

As Mr. Heard detailed at class meetings, Milton has implemented mandatory schoolwide Reach policies this year because it has historically “done a bad job” with keeping track of the student body. But is this new policy actually sustainable? Moreover, as noted in this issue’s interview with the Head Monitors, the Student Governing Association (SGA) was not consulted during Reach deliberations. Currently, the Reach program is in a beta testing system, wherein students are still adjusting to signing in and out. The Office of Student Life has not yet chosen to implement consequences such as cuts or tardies for not signing in or out. While the lack of penalties allows students grace during this adjustment, many students have chosen to forgo the system entirely. Recently, boarders received emails notifying them of an ice cream reward for the house with the most participation. However, day students still face no incentive for Reach use. Without any repercussions, it’s unrealistic for the administration to expect total engagement.

At the end of the 2025-2026 school year, the administration drew students into conversations over a potential phone ban and indicated that, while no specific policy had been confirmed, students should expect future changes in phone regulations. However, the Milton Academy Student Handbook’s phone policy remains unchanged, though the administration claims that they will formally “enforce” it this year. Repeatedly, our administration has highlighted that phones hamper community building. Ironically, despite widespread criticism of phones, the new Reach system requires students to have their phones readily accessible across the three check-in times. Though the school has banned QR codes in USM to limit our scrambling for phones mid-meeting, we must still use our phones to tap in before these meetings. Though the school aims to discourage phone use, new administrative policies have made this virtually impossible. In addition, while the Office of Student Life promised that check-ins would increase face-to-face time between students and faculty, they have ultimately added more time, largely spent on screens, to faculty members’ already busy schedules; this time could otherwise be allocated elsewhere.

We applaud the administration’s effort to make changes to ensure our safety. However, we believe that Milton should reevaluate whether the newly implemented Reach policies are necessary and efficient. To do so, the administration should discuss major student-life-related policies with the SGA and with faculty across departments and dorms. Ultimately, Milton’s administration must reflect on whether we even need such handholding: while freshmen may benefit from greater oversight, the policy could be scaled by class year, and the second check-in may prove superfluous. In order to learn from our mistakes, we must first be trusted.