State cellphone bans for public school students divide parents

Danielle Hicks, whose 9-year-old son gets picked on for developmental issues at his public charter school, isn’t happy about a recent trend of states banning student cellphones on K-12 campuses.

“I’m the first person to say that kids shouldn’t use phones while they’re in class, but they need access to them,” Ms. Hicks, who lives with her wife in southwest Florida, told The Washington Times. “My son is often bullied at school, and I want him to have a phone because the school often fails to protect our kids.”

Ms. Hicks is one of many parents on both sides of the political divide with mixed feelings about the push to confiscate phones.

Florida last year became the first state to enact a ban on cellphones during class time. As he signed the law, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said social media does “more harm than good.”

More than a dozen states from Alabama to Connecticut have followed suit amid bipartisan consensus that screen time damages young people mentally and emotionally.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 23 signed a law that requires every public school district, charter school and county education office in the state to limit or prohibit smartphones by July 2026.

“We know that excessive smartphone use increases anxiety, depression and other mental health issues, but we have the power to intervene,” said Mr. Newsom, a Democrat. “This new law will help students focus on academics, social development and the world in front of them, not their screens, when they’re in school.”

That came after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, signed an executive order in July that went further. It requires all public schools to implement “bell-to-bell” bans by January.

As of September, 113 of the state’s 130 school divisions had implemented the policy, which requires students to leave their phones in an inaccessible pouch or locker throughout the day.

“If you’re going phone-free, you can’t just do it in class, which is what most schools in the country are doing — they’re abandoning the phones in class, which means that everyone’s on their phone between classes,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt said at a recent forum that Virginia education officials organized in Prince William County.

Not all parents are on board with this reasoning. They want their children to be able to reach them in emergencies and document complaints that a school ignores.

At Bonita Springs Charter School in Florida, Ms. Hicks fretted that the bans could prompt Congress to pass legislation resembling conservative states’ restrictions on abortion and K-12 discussions of LGBTQ issues.

“I do not support a countrywide ban because there are too many extenuating circumstances, and I also feel as if the ban would be too ambiguous, similar to the [Florida] abortion ban or ’don’t say gay’ law,” she said.

On the other side of the political spectrum, some conservative parental rights advocates said the bans shut out parents worried about liberal bias in public schools.

They pointed out that increased use of digital technology during pandemic lockdowns allowed more parents to hold public schools accountable for pushing left-wing views on hot-button topics such as race and gender identity.

“Because government schools are so toxic with shootings and liberal indoctrination, parents feel their children are safer with the communication and documentation cellphones provide,” said Sheri Few, president of United States Parents Involved in Education.

Emergency calls

According to parents on either side of the political divide, the ideal policy allows students to use their phones between classes while keeping them out of sight during instruction.

They say policies requiring students to lock up their phones all day go too far and point to the example of a recent school shooting near Winder, Georgia.

During the Sept. 4 incident, Apalachee High School students used their phones to call 911 and text parents while a shooter killed two of their classmates and two teachers, which wouldn’t have been possible under a bell-to-bell ban.

“When there is an emergency in the school, sometimes the students are the first ones to see it and call 911,” said Laura Carno, executive director of FASTER Colorado, which trains armed school staffers.

Other parents said they support some restrictions, but only if they do not harm their children.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, signed a law in July that provides $100 million in grants to buy lockable smartphone pouches for schools that implement restrictions.

The policy includes an exemption for students with documented medical issues that require them to use their phones as health monitoring devices.

Jennifer Turley, a mother of two teenage boys and a substitute teacher in Pennsylvania public schools, said her 17-year-old son doesn’t care about having a phone in class.

Her 13-year-old son, who has Type 1 diabetes, received a smartphone policy exemption at school that allows a nurse to monitor his blood sugar levels through an app.

“Phones can be a major distraction,” Ms. Turley said. “I personally don’t have an issue with the ban, except for children with medical issues who need them.”

Fifteen states have enacted policies urging or requiring schools to ban smartphones since 2023, according to industry publication Education Week: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington.

Other states are considering similar bans. They include Texas, where Education Commissioner Mike Morath recently floated the idea of a statewide ban, and New York, where Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has campaigned to “liberate” kids from their devices.

Meanwhile, hundreds of individual schools and districts have imposed restrictions without waiting for state policies to change. Some have followed the model of private schools, which have long imposed more restrictive policies.

Psychologist Matthew Mulvaney, a parenting researcher who teaches at private Syracuse University in upstate New York, emphasized that school shootings remain “exceptionally rare” nationally.

“I would also go further and say that I think it is a dangerous thing to accept the premise that these events should be normalized to the extent that we would construct phone policy around them,” Mr. Mulvaney said.

He said research linking “intensive phone use” to post-pandemic spikes in suicide risks and mental health problems offers a better basis for revising school phone policies.

“I think we’re learning that the bans are manageable and that parents, teachers and children will adapt quickly to the new norms,” Mr. Mulvaney added. “And most will be happy with them.”

Digital distractions

Worried parents have been keen to send cellphones to school with their children ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and reports of mass shootings ushered in the new millennium.

But veteran teachers say they have observed for years that students use phones more for cyberbullying, pornography and video games than for texting parents. They point out that past generations made it through school with only a front office phone to reach their parents in emergencies.

The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, found that 90% of K-12 teachers it surveyed in August endorsed school policies forbidding student phones during class. Most unionized teachers responding to the poll complained that smart devices disrupted their students’ learning.

“To address this, school districts should work with parents, educators and students to create clear policies that limit personal device access during school hours,” the NEA said in an email.

“These policies must be thorough and explicit, including necessary exceptions for things like medical and disability-related needs, and avoid leaving individual educators to administer them,” it added.

Critics of phones also point to data linking jumps in screen time during pandemic school lockdowns to falling math and reading scores.

They say students should focus on managing those challenges without constant intervention from their parents.

Amanda Bacon-Davis, the author of an award-winning children’s book and mother of a daughter with severe anxiety, said she’s “all for banning phones in schools” and is “in zero rush” to give her daughter a smartphone.

“I don’t know if it’s a matter of safety for students to have or not have them, but I do believe they’re a complete distraction from what teachers are trying to teach,” Ms. Bacon-Davis said. “Along with them being a distraction, I believe children are losing the ability to engage in the real world.”

Digital safety experts say bell-to-bell bans have emerged as the most effective tool for keeping students focused on their work.

Liz Repking of Cyber Safety Consulting, an Illinois company that works with schools to develop internet safety policies, said there’s no legitimate reason for most K-12 students to have smartphones on campus.

She said teachers that allow phones between periods waste 2 to 5 minutes per lesson of valuable learning time policing students who sneak a look at their devices in class.

Other concerns include students secretly filming teachers to post deceptively edited videos on social media, often to get them fired.

“Even if the phone is off, the mere presence of the phone on the desk or in the bag is a mental distraction to the student,” said Ms. Repking, who has consulted with Catholic parochial schools on implementing bell-to-bell bans. “The digital drama that is created through group chats and social media is killing our kids.”