(The Center Square) – The national discussion on keeping students off cell phones during school has reached full boil in many state capitals, and Luisa Baez isn’t surprised that Harrisburg, Pa., is one of them.
The 37-year-old mother of two has a 16-year-old daughter at McCaskey High School in Lancaster, and she knows a ban is being talked about there.
Baez knows phones are disruptive, but she also worries about attacks on schools.
“What if they have to hide and what if they have to get in touch with us?” Baez said.
That strong sentiment among many parents – which experts push back against – is just one thread in a complex debate simmering in the Pennsylvania Capitol. In the eyes of one close observer, one thing on the minds of policymakers should be money.
“From a taxpayer standpoint, this is catastrophic,” said Kelly Marsh, a leader in the “PA Unplugged” coalition, which aims to improve the way technology is used in society.
Marsh, an Allegheny County mother of three, pointed to a study published earlier this month in the online medical journal JAMA Network. It found that among 79 youths aged 11 to 18 years, the typical amount of time devoted to cell phone use was one-third of the school day – in Marsh’s view, a massive waste of taxpayer-funded education money.
Another question in the debate in the Legislature is whether there should be a ban for the full school day, or just during class time. Still another is whether the students should be allowed to keep the phones on their person or whether the devices should be put away somewhere.
One bill awaiting action in Harrisburg, whose sponsors are led by Republican Sen. Devlin Robinson of Allegheny County, would create a “bell-to-bell” ban for the entire school day. Robinson said districts could purchase special cell phone holding bags or require students to keep them in lockers, book bags, or other holding devices.
The Robinson bill – co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Vincent Hughes and Steve Santarsiero – passed the Senate last month in a 46-1 vote. It is now awaiting action in the House Education Committee, chaired by Lehigh County Democratic Rep. Peter Schweyer, who sees the Robinson bill as a palatable option.
During the forced remote learning in the COVID-19 pandemic, Schweyer said, his school district had to deal with 3,000 households without Internet access – and teachers started using cell phone reachouts as an education tool.
It hasn’t stopped, Schweyer said.
“Teachers are using cell phones in a manner that is constructive and educational,” he said. Hence, he said, the Robinson bill still “needs a little bit of work” to include permitting cell phone use for educational purposes.
A mother of four kids ranging in age from 8 to 14, Democratic state Rep. Mandy Steele, has sponsored a bill to have the devices collected and removed from student possession for the entire day. It, too, is awaiting action in Schweyer’s committee.
“It is a massive, massive public health issue. The largest one I am aware of,” said Steele. Phones, she said, contribute to children’s mental health problems, self-harm incidents, obesity, and disrupted academics. “This is something our country needs to drop everything for and tackle it immediately.”
But Schweyer, who also has children, said he will not support “confiscations of the cell phone at the start of the day.”
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told lawmakers during his February budget address he wants a bill “to ban cell phones while kids are in school.”
Across the nation, it’s a hot issue.
Kansas lawmakers sent a ban bill to the governor there on Friday. Two days before that, Utah lawmakers sent their governor a bill for a more extensive ban than one that had been passed previously.
At least 40 states have considered school phone-curtailing bills, and all but four have taken at least some action, according to a state-by-state “report card” issued by organizations including The Institute for Families and Technology. How stringent the actions are varies greatly.
Two states – North Dakota and Rhode Island – got an ‘A’ for storing student phones in an inaccessible fashion during the day, while four states – Connecticut, Maryland, Mississippi, and Wyoming – got an ‘F’ for having bills fail to pass.
Thirty-year-old Kit Singh of Ephrata, Pa., remembered how some students at Ephrata High School were distracted by their phones. His own, he said, often stayed out of sight in school because “my parents taught me the right way.”
Eighty-year-old Ann Axe of the Lancaster area also said phones are a distraction. “I don’t know how much learning they get, having them in possession at all times.” But — like Baez — she wondered if students might need them in emergencies.
That argument was rebutted by testimony from Beth Sanborn, president of the Pennsylvania Association of School Resource Officers, given at a hearing last year.
“In moments of crisis, such as an active threat or school shooting, every second counts,” Sanborn testified. Students, she said, should focus on “what is happening in the moment, not on screens or social media” and students who use their phones “risk sharing inaccurate or incomplete information, which can cause panic both inside and outside the building.”
Many school districts in Pennsylvania already limit cell phone use by students. Two years ago, state government put in place a program in which schools could use grant money to buy special bags for holding student cell phones during the day.
Another leader of the PA Unplugged coalition, Kristen Beddard of Allegheny County, said that what really jump-started the issue a few years ago was publication of the Jonathan Haidt book, “The Anxious Generation,” about how the “great rewiring of childhood” was causing an epidemic of mental illness.
“Until then, nobody was galvanizing the parents,” said Beddard, a mother of two school-aged children.
It’s clear that school leaders around the state want some sort of limitation on student cell phone use, said Sherri Smith, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.
At minimum, she said, there is a desire to have student phone use banned during class time. At the same time, Smith believes it is crucial that local leaders have some sort of input on the final policy that is applied in their schools.
Otherwise, putting a statewide student cell phone ban in place will lead to problems. Smith said a basic need is to be sure that a new law can “truly be implemented with integrity.”
