A lot's said about the state of schools in North Carolina. Lawmakers, school board members and parents are all quick to share their thoughts about the challenges impacting students. We don't hear from the students, the ones directly impacted, nearly as often. WRAL sat down with a panel of students to change that.

In a wide-ranging interview, the students discussed things like school safety, school security, bullying, cell phone policies and vaping. Below is part of that conversation, focusing on bullying, cell phones and social media.

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Are cell phone restrictions working?

Lawmakers and school leaders say policies restricting how often students can use cell phones are succeeding. They even think it's helping reduce bullying. Our student panel had mixed thoughts.

"I think it's really nice because you just put it up in the start of each class period, but you can still use it at lunch or if you're transitioning between classes," Aaditi Pandey, junior at Green Hope High School, said.

"I think it's working. I wouldn't say [the policy is] directly helping with bullying by any means," Paige Lawson, senior at Garner Magnet High School, said. "My brother is in middle school right now, and there was no phone policy when I was in middle school at the same school, and he's not on his phone at all during the school day, which I think I probably would have hated it, but I think it's good for students now."

Bullying in schools

The panel of students all agreed that there's a misconception of what bullying actually is versus what adults think it does.

"Bullying happens in so many different ways, especially with social media now," Lawson said." "We've all sat through cyberbullying seminars and learning about all of that, but I think it just still happens, and it happens so often."

"I feel like what a lot of adults and what a lot of teachers perceive as bullying is this classic high school bullying, where like you say a bunch of mean things to their face and they get hurt," Paridhi Dhakhal, junior at Enloe High School, said. "But it's honestly not like they're like that. It's like a lot of below the surface kind of things."

What should parents do? 

Since the panel agreed that adults may be out-of-touch with what bullying looks like, we asked them for suggestions on what parents should do about it.

"You can talk to their friends. People our age are able to tell what's going on probably a lot quicker because they have the same emotions," Sara Anderton, senior at Fuquay-Varina High School, said.

"I would honestly say, be a lot of parents just need to be a bit more realistic," Amirah Williams, senior at Middle Creek High School, said. "Most 17-year-olds, 16-year-olds, high school students, middle school students, they don't want to find themselves. They don't want to have a big come to earth. 'This is who I am. I'm going to stand in that.' That's not what a teenager or a preteen wants. They want to fit in. They want to be cool." 

"Protecting your kids only goes so far because at this age you're going to  explore a lot of things on your own," Dhakhal said. "You're going to want to be curious about a lot of things. So just allowing them to do some things, but still talking to them about it, being like, 'Hey, like you can wear that. Like [Williams] said, 'You can wear this, but let's talk about why you want to do this.' Those kind of conversations - it's a lot more helpful, and it's a lot more healthy, too."