Seven states passed laws prohibiting cellphone use during instruction time or requiring districts to impose restrictions at the local level.
By Aaron Gifford | Epoch Times
Mountain Middle School in Durango, Colorado, banned cellphones from classrooms a dozen years ago.
Principal and executive director Shane Voss recalled at the time the constant stream of text messages and snapping of photos were too much to tolerate.
“It was already a massive distraction before that, in 2010,” he told The Epoch Times. “All of the sudden, everyone’s got a camera in their pocket.”
Prior to the start of the 2012–2013 academic year, Voss asked his faculty if anyone could think of a reason to justify students having their phone in the classroom. Not a single hand went up.
With that, a policy took effect requiring phones to be turned off and placed inside backpacks until the students exited the building at the end of the school day. The principal can count the number of total infractions during the policy’s history on one hand.
“The kids were actually yearning for this,” Voss said, adding that students in recent years told him that they enjoy the morning and afternoons without having to check their messages or read updates on the people, teams, or events they follow on social media.
“They’re talking to each other. They learn from that personal communication and collaboration.”
More than a decade after Mountain’s ban, personal wireless devices and online applications available to children are far more advanced and engaging; distractions aren’t limited to camera flashes and text notifications. Social media sites accessible by cellphones are increasingly linked to youth addiction, anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems.
In California, the nation’s largest state, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 23 signed into law a measure requiring districts to enact their own policies for limiting or prohibiting smartphone use in schools. Similar legislation is pending in East Coast states.
Academic improvement at Mountain, a public charter school that serves grades 4-8, meanwhile, surged after its policy took effect. Voss said state test scores in math, English language arts, and science went from dead last in the Western Slope region of Colorado to first place during those 12 years, and this institution of around 300 students remains a top performer in the state. Voss was named the 2024 Colorado State Charter School Leader of the Year.
The Colorado Department of Education listed Mountain Middle School as meeting academic achievement and academic growth with a 75 percent score for both categories in 2016. Seven years later, its academic achievement score was 99.3 percent, and academic growth was listed as 86.8 percent.
“The ban has everything to do with that,” Voss said. “There are no distractions, the students are focused, and everyone in the classroom understands the etiquette piece. With phones, otherwise, the teacher is just talking to themself.”
Voss said restrictions are more challenging to enact now because teachers fail to set an example by turning off their phones. And there is pushback from parents who insist they should have the ability to contact or track their children at any moment. Two to three times a week, he consults with school and state leaders who are pursuing similar restrictions in their own districts.
“This is a second job for me,” he said. “It’s a movement right now.”
Even though phone restrictions can be determined at the classroom level, where teachers and school leaders often lack the will to deal with resistance, the youth mental health crisis has prompted action by state legislatures in the past nine months alone.
All told, California, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia passed laws prohibiting the use of phones during instruction time or requiring individual districts to establish policies by 2025, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Education Bill-tracking webpage.
Florida’s cellphone ban, passed in 2023, also prohibits the use of smartwatches during instruction time.
Similar cellphone restriction laws are pending in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico.
Last week, the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) union met with state lawmakers, health care providers, law enforcement leaders, parents, and students as part of the Disconnected Conference in Albany. NYSUT wants a statewide policy restricting cellphones and personal devices for the length of the school day, according to a Sept. 27 news release.
“Students are struggling to talk to students, talk to adults, problem-solve how to navigate social situations, how to look people in the eye, and just coping with the world around them,” Nick Harris, a school psychologist at Guilderland High School, said in the news release. “Most of the time, our students are reporting to us that whatever site they’re on, whatever they’re doing, they’re just getting more depressed, more anxious, and more distracted.”
Many school districts across the nation aren’t waiting for a state mandate.
Wyoming’s Riverton Middle School began restricting cellphone use in 2022. Assistant Principal Brady Slack said the number of disciplinary referrals has plummeted. He’s unaware of any incidents in the past year related to bullying or sharing inappropriate photos or social media posts.
“It just kind of goes away,” Slack told The Epoch Times. “And the students and parents are fine with it now.”
In the San Mateo, California, Union High School District (SMUHSD), two of its 10 schools have a bell-to-bell policy where student phones are placed in Yondr pouches that can only be unlocked by a magnet at building exits after the last period of instruction. San Mateo High School implemented the policy in 2019, and Peninsula High School followed in 2021, Laura Chalkley, district director of communications, told The Epoch Times by email.
The SMUHSD Board of Trustees reviewed the policy on Sept. 11 in anticipation of the statewide law. School officials did not provide evidence of academic improvements but they did report better student behavior and engagement.
The most notable difference—much louder hallways and cafeterias compared to the time when students looked down at their phones during lunch or between classes.
And students are less self-conscious and more energetic at pep rallies and assemblies because they know another student won’t be filming them if they look awkward, San Mateo High School Principal Yvonne Shiu said at the meeting.
Shiu said parents are informed if a student is disciplined for finding a way to access their phone during the school day, and the school is willing to keep phones over the weekend if a parent requests it.
“It prevents a home from getting ransacked if they want to get their phone back,” she said during the Sept. 11 meeting, adding that during the past four years, students have told her that their fear of “constantly missing out” which bound them to their phones has faded. The kids catch up on their messages as they leave the building at the end of the day and realize what they missed was not worth the distraction from learning.
During that same meeting, Peninsula High School Principal Ronald Campana said fights and scuffles became scarce after the ban took effect, and the few that happened “never made it to YouTube.”
The nonprofit Phone-Free Schools Movement advocacy organization was formed last year by parents whose children were traumatized by social media episodes. It advocates bell-to-bell bans on cellphones, smartwatches, fitness trackers, and Bluetooth-connected headphones. Co-founder Sabine Polak reports better student behavior in schools across the country, fewer privacy violations, and better teacher morale and retention because the burden of policing phone use is gone.
The organization discourages policies allowing phones or personal devices during lunch periods or for certain classroom activities, let alone leaving the choice up to individual teachers.
“It’s the second-hand smoke effect, not just a personal choice,” Polak told The Epoch Times. “They affect everyone around them. They take kids away from the instruction in the classroom, and those who turn those off still have to worry about being videotaped.”
Opposition
Cellphone ban advocates recognize safety concerns as the top reason families and lawmakers oppose restrictions.
On Sept. 6, the National Parents Union released survey results and a statement affirming its fight against school restrictions.
“Cellphone bans fail to take into consideration the tragic, real-life scenarios that unfortunately play out all too often in schools. And schools have yet to improve communication with us,” National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues said in the news release.
“The concerns of American parents are real and deserve to also be considered in the creation of any policy that impacts our ability to communicate with our children.”
Back in Colorado, another school principal who claimed state honors for leading a top-performing school, much like Voss at Mountain Middle School, is happy to discuss his policies with other districts looking for direction. But this man, Chris Page of Highlands Ranch High School, allows and even encourages the use of cellphones during class.
Page says the school’s mission is to prepare students for life after graduation, whether that’s college or a full-time job that requires workers to pay close attention to their phones. He advocates a K-12 digital citizenship curriculum that trains children to balance the use of devices with human interaction and learning.
“It’s our responsibility to teach kids to use them the right way,” Page, Colorado’s 2023 High School Principal of the Year, told The Epoch Times. “You can take the cellphones away, but the bullies will still jump on after 4 p.m.
“We don’t control technology like that anymore. Disruptions have always existed. How we guide them is the art of teaching.”