For the pleasure of all that work and study, Midland charges an eye-popping tuition of $55,300, though only about 40 percent of families pay it. More than half the student body gets scholarships of around $32,000.

Midland graduates reliably move on to well-regarded universities, including Stanford and Harvard. Many later report being profoundly changed by their rustic high school experiences. Yet even during a time of growing anxiety over the role of technology in young people’s lives, Midland has struggled to keep its enrollment numbers up.

That’s partly because private school applications have been on the decline generally. There’s also the matter of boarding — the students stay in spare wooden cabins — an idea that doesn’t sit well with many California parents. And in some cases, Barnes said, prospective students have recoiled at the no-phone policy. “Thirteen- and 14-year-olds have a veto,” he noted. “That didn’t use to be true.”

Students are allowed to bring pet dogs with them into class. (Marcie Begleiter)

Still, a number of Midland students said that while the initial withdrawal was difficult, they ultimately found the phoneless life to be almost liberating.

Jade Feldsher, a 16-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, said that before joining Midland she worried about how devices had overtaken her social life. “I thought that everybody was becoming a phone zombie, and I knew that I’d become one too, and I did,” she said.

“It sounds really cheesy,” she added, “but I think I’m happy to not have it.”

See more photos from Midland School by the filmmaker and photographer Marcie Begleiter below.

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