Lawmakers want K-12 students off their phones at school, but proposals vary widely
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Cellphones in schools have become a target of lawmakers across the country.
From New Jersey to California, state leaders are pushing school districts to get students off their phones. At least 160 bills have been filed on the topic in 38 states and Washington, D.C. as of mid-March, according to a Statehouse Reporting Network analysis.
But policies vary widely, ranging from grant programs that provide financial incentives to adopt policies, to strict statewide bell-to-bell bans. While some have hailed less restrictive measures as allowing for greater flexibility and local control, others say states aren’t moving fast enough to curb the cellphone problem.
In Texas, Rep. Ellen Troxclair, R-Lakeway, proposed a statewide no-phones policy. She said she’s heard from several districts that have seen benefits from a total phone ban.
“Teachers are reporting that kids are more engaged … they have more quality education time in the classroom,” she said. “Kids who originally were not sure about how to live without their cellphone, after a few weeks, they realized that life is good without a screen.”
Across the country, red and blue states alike are pushing school districts to get students off their phones. At least 153 bills have been filed on the topic in 38 states and Washington, D.C. as of March 24, according to a Statehouse Reporting Project analysis.
But teachers, school administrators, experts and lawmakers are at odds over which policies are best. And as that debate continues, so does the fight for students’ attention.
This is your kid’s brain on cellphones
From 2015 to 2023, the share of teens who use the internet at least once a day has ballooned to 96%. Of those, around half reported being online “almost constantly,” according to a Pew Research survey. Educators, school administrators and parents have been raising the alarm that being constantly plugged in is blocking students from learning.
A number of studies back those observations, including one that found the mere presence of a student’s cellphone on their desk impacts cognitive function during demanding tasks, including learning.
Annette Anderson, an assistant professor and deputy director of the Center for Safe and Healthy Schools at Johns Hopkins University, founded schools in Pennsylvania and Baltimore before accepting a position at the university teaching K-12 administrators and teachers.
She said phones have been causing issues in the classroom for the last 15 years. Like Cooney, she said that harm accelerated after the COVID-19 pandemic, when social media apps became more prominent.
The novelty of the issue has precluded any scholarly consensus on the precise impacts of phones on students’ mental health and attention spans. But teachers, school administrators and scholars say the devices take a toll on students in and out of the classroom.
“There’s always something that’s happening in their pocket that is more engaging than anything that I could do as a teacher in the classroom, or that their social life would even provide them,” said Brendon Cooney, a teacher in Joplin. “The losses are not strictly measured by test performance. It’s their social well-being, as well, and their ability to interact with each other and with adults.”
As of March 24, 19-and-counting state legislatures are taking action to encourage schools to have cellphone policies, according to an EdWeek policy tracker, with nine going as far as requiring school districts to adopt a cellphone policy or instituting a statewide ban.
Granting flexibility
While some bills would implement a statewide phone ban, a majority of legislation introduced this year analyzed by the Statehouse Reporting Network would give school districts the power to create their policy, and some bills would even provide funding.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, voiced support for “phone-free schools” in his final annual State of the State policy-setting address. He followed up on Feb. 19 with a proposal for $3 million in grants for public school districts to buy cell-blocking tools, like storage pouches.
Legislation sponsored by New Jersey Assembly Member Aura Dunn, R-Mendham, would direct public school districts to make their own rules and grant a total of $2 million for implementation.
Similar grant programs have been introduced in at least 10 states, including Arizona, Idaho and Minnesota.
Anderson, the Johns Hopkins professor, said grant programs are a good way for states to help school districts, especially districts with fewer resources, which may be stretched thin when left to enforce phone bans on their own.
In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, introduced legislation this session that would create a “minimum” cellphone policy that could take effect as soon as July. Schools could adopt that policy or a more stringent one.
“Cell phones are not only a distraction but a deterrent to development in the classroom,” Reynolds said in a statement.
Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also gotten involved in the debate, spurring state Rep. Mark Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills, to file a bill that would implement phone policies depending on grade level, according to reporting from Statehouse Network partner Capital News Service.
The bill would bar students through fifth grade from bringing their phones to school, while middle and high school students would be allowed to bring phones to school but only be allowed to use them during certain parts of the day.
The Michigan Education Association has backed the policy, arguing it would allow districts to have some flexibility.
“We do not support statewide bans or funding mandates because every school is different,” said Thomas Morgan, the association’s press secretary. “We believe that each community requires local solutions that involve frontline educators and parents in the decision-making process.”
In Missouri, Rep. Kathy Steinhoff, D-Columbia, and Rep. Jamie Gragg, R-Ozark, filed bills that would require school districts to create a phone policy. Though the now-combined bill does not require schools to ban phones, it does ask them to restrict phone use during “instructional time.”
Their proposal would also create a minimum policy, asking districts to draft a rule that blocks students from using their phones in the classroom.
“My thinking on this is that, when you’ve got a whole state that is trying to initiate this policy the way that we crafted it, hopefully, you are going to have districts that do different things, and then we can compare the results,” Steinhoff said.
Anderson said she favors more flexible approaches. She specifically noted that in under-resourced communities, parents may cling to their children’s access to cellphones as a way to contact them. She also noted schools often lack the resources to implement cellphone bans effectively, adding to the strain on teachers.
“All zeroed-in on their phones”
Cooney has taught English at Joplin High School in Joplin since 2014. When his students returned from quarantine during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, he noticed a dramatic shift in the classroom.
“From the moment I arrived, I was just really shocked at how they were all zeroed-in on their phones,” he said. “When kids were coming back from pandemic isolation, closures, quarantine, the phone addiction was up to a never-before-seen level.”
Cooney said he believes a bell-to-bell ban is the best way to get kids reengaged at school.
“Fifty minutes and 500 square feet is not enough,” he said, referring to a typical classroom size and class period length. “It’s got to be eight hours, and it’s got to be the whole place, because attention has to relax.”
In 2023, Florida implemented legislation that barred students from using their phones during instructional time. But two school districts took the policy a step further, restricting the use of phones during the entire school day.
Parents have pushed back, arguing that total cellphone bans can create safety concerns when they are unable to contact their children throughout the school day.
In Broward County, which has the sixth-largest school district in the U.S., data collected last year shows communication during emergencies are one of the biggest complaints among parents and school staff.
School board member Lori Alhadeff said she would be open to repealing the restriction during lunch because that time belongs to the students.
Alhadeff, whose daughter was killed in a 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, pointed to a policy Broward is enacting to subside parents’ safety concerns — a wearable panic button for faculty to press, alerting law enforcement during an emergency.
“At the end of the day, parents want to know that their kids are safe,” Alhadeff said. “And I totally get that they want to hear from their child or communicate with their child, but in these emergency situations, we need to have the students’ full attention to be able to listen, to hear directions, to know what to do and say, like (in) a lockdown situation or a fire drill.”
Some parents’ critiques of bell-to-bell bans haven’t wavered.
In Orange County, where the eighth-largest school district in the U.S. also enacted a full-day restriction on phones, parent Judi Hayes hasn’t favored the policy because of safety and practicality.
She said her son, a high school student, had his phone confiscated after he was using it to find the room for a student government meeting.
“I just feel like we live in an era of constant information, and it’s not fair to our kids to cut them off from that,” Hayes said. “It’s not fair to me as a parent to make me have to sit here and worry about it all day long.”
Cooney said he understands parents’ concerns about being able to reach their kids in case of an emergency. But he also worries that constant communication between parents and kids in the name of safety isn’t doing them any good. He pointed to a concept termed “safety-ism,” by Jonathan Haidt, a vocal opponent of student cellphone use and social media.
“This is not doing these kids any good, and nobody’s willing to acknowledge that,” he said. “You’ve made it so that then, a kid never really is off the apron strings.”
Contributing to this story were Johan Villatoro and Ryland Russell from The University of Texas; Abby Thomas from Rowan University; Lauren Brensel from The University of Florida; Camila Bello Castro from Michigan State University and Natanya Friedham and Aidan Pittman from the University of Missouri. Bill analysis was conducted using BillTrack50.
