New Utah bill would institute statewide ban on cellphones in public schools

At Granger High School, students start the school day by placing their cellphones in magnetic pouches, where they remain until the end of the instructional day. Then, students place their pouches over a magnet held by a member of the school staff that releases the lock so students can resume the use of their phones. Most students store the pouches in their backpacks.

This is how Granger High School has elected to comply with Granite School District’s new policy on cellphone use, which went into effect at the start of the school year. The policy says phones are off limits during instructional time.

Granger High School Principal Tyler Howe said implementing the policy, which was developed by the school community over 15 months, is a “work in progress.”

He has observed that their school has become quite noisy at lunch time as students socialize with one another, where before many of them buried their heads in their cellphones.

“This really started because teachers approached me saying we need to be more proactive and more intentional about how are we going to address this and carve out the time for learning,” he said.

“We’re on day nine of the school year, we’ve seen major changes in our school. I’ve got teachers reporting to me that they have never fit so much stuff into the time that they have a class period. They’re getting ahead of schedule, because there’s just not the same level of distractions,” Howe said during a press conference on Monday.

Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, lauded local efforts to rein in cellphone use. “Granger is a leader in the state in implementing a cellphone policy that prioritizes the learning environment and students’ mental health,” he said.

Currently, state law is silent on the issue of cellphones, so schools or districts have been adopting their own policies.

Fillmore and Rep. Doug Welton, R-Payson, who is an educator, are proposing a statewide prohibition on cellphone use in schools unless a school district or charter school board adopts a policy that permits their use.

The legislative proposal would “flip our script with cellphones in school,” Fillmore said.

“So we’re preserving local control, but we’re recognizing that in the time since cellphones, and especially smartphones, became ubiquitous in schools, we have learned so much about their impact on students and their impact on the learning process that we need a reset and we need to make to prohibit cellphones in schools, except in specific circumstances that teachers and school boards and school districts and students and parents can collaborate together to define,” Fillmore said.

The draft legislation calls for a proposed $4.8 million, one-time appropriation from the Public Education Economic Stabilization Restricted Account to offer grants to schools for equipment to implement policies that prohibit cellphone use during instructional time such as the locking magnetic pouches.

The Policy Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes solution-based policies, is collaborating with the Utah Legislature to bolster the effort with private fundraising to help schools purchase needed technology or equipment to implement the state law, said the organization’s founder and president Emily Bell McCormick.

“Additionally, we will support teachers and administrators by creating a best practice, model, implementation policy that will save our busy schools time and effort to take the guesswork out of the best way to make this change,” she said.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sydnee Dickson said she has observed classrooms where cell phone are used well so she was initially skeptical of the early discussions about a universal prohibition on cellphones in schools.

But as she dug into the data and learned more about the rise in students’ mental health challenges that correlates with the advent of social media as well teachers’ frustrations over students who are more focused on what is happening on social media than what is happening in their classrooms, behavioral issues and a lack of engagement, she’s had a change of heart.

“I have become a convert. ... Our students deserve to be in places that are free of distraction,” she said.

Granger High School senior Cameron Black said implementation of the policy has been a mixed bag. Some students have attempted to unlock their phone pouches by slamming them against walls or they bring magnets to school to attempt to pop open the locks.

Black said he has also observed that students are more social and it is easier to learn because there are fewer distractions in classrooms.

“Before last school year, everybody would be on their phone. I think this year, this is the loudest our cafeteria has ever been. I mean, I’m all for it,” he said.