Last week, the Senate voted 38-2 to approve a bill that would require public school districts to adopt policies that would prohibit students from possessing and using “personal electronic devices” — cellphones — during the school day.
The bill also reportedly has the support of Gov. Maura Healey, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, Senate President Karen Spilka and the state’s two largest teachers unions. However, according to the Boston Globe, the House has no plans to advance the legislation.
Given the mounting evidence that any good that comes from allowing students access to their phones during the school day is greatly outweighed by the harmful effects, that’s a shame.
On this subject, we trust most those on the front lines in the war for students’ attention, their teachers. They have made their opinions clear: In a spring 2024 survey of members of the National Education Association, 83% of members supported a school-day-long ban on cellphones.
In a separate survey, more than half of public school leaders (53%) said that they feel that their students’ academic performance has been negatively impacted by cellphone usage, while more than two-thirds feel cellphones have had a negative impact on their students’ mental health (72%) and attention span (73%), the National Center for Educational Statistics reported earlier this year.
For adults in the community, this data should not be surprising. We have seen, for example, restaurants offer us discounted meals — or even a free bottle of wine — if we would just put our phones away. Such is the irresistible allure of dopamine released in our brains when we use our cellphones, which can lead us to check our phones constantly, even when there’s no real need.
While some argue that allowing students access to their devices during the school day helps teach them personal responsibility and discipline, how can we expect students — with still-developing brains — to resist their devices’ siren’s call when many of us fail so regularly?
And that call is constant. In a 2023 survey, Common Sense Media found that over half of participants were receiving 237 or more “pings” or notifications on their cellphones per day, about a quarter of which arrived during the school day.
According to the NCES, more than three-quarters of public schools (77%) now have cellphone policies that prohibit students from having their cellphones during any classes.
As San Marcos (California) High School art teacher Devon Espejo recently told NEA Today, “Some parents may be uncomfortable with the policy. But if they were to sit through a class with kids who have access to their phones, and then sit through one where phones were not allowed, they would endorse it.”
Marblehead High School’s current policy is more permissive. Students and their parents or guardians have to sign a user agreement pledging to abide by the ethical use of electronics. But once they do, they can use their phones during class periods but only with their teachers’ explicit permission and only for the purpose of “achieving an educational objective.” Students can use their cellphones during study halls “as long as the use of the device is not disruptive to the learning environment” and must go to the main office to make phone calls during school hours.
Even if the state legislature does not force the issue, local school leaders should take a long look at the “toolkit” on cellphones and social media Attorney General Campbell’s office published earlier this year. That toolkit outlines the benefits and drawbacks of three categories of school cellphone policies. The most restrictive — but also most effective in improving the learning environment — is a “bell-to-bell” phone-free policy, under which phones are placed in lock boxes or locking pouches until the end of the school day. One of the benefits to such a policy is that it is centralized, with implementation consistent throughout the school.
The importance of consistent implementation of a cellphone policy cannot be underestimated, Missouri science teacher and union president Noelle Gilzow told NEA Today.
“If the policy isn’t clear and consistent in a school, you get a slippery slope,” she said. “You have the ‘cool’ teacher who lets me use my cellphone in class. And then there is the ‘mean’ teacher who does not. Not only will the policy fail, but it also confuses students and can set up a bad dynamic, an unhealthy culture in the building.”
The attorney general’s toolkit also outlines “off and away” and “limited use” policies for cellphones in the schools. But one of the main drawbacks of such less restrictive policies is that they place the burden on teachers to enforce them, which can take time away from instruction and strain relationships with their students.
At least some local families have not been waiting for a state edict to help their children develop healthier relationships with their devices. As the Current reported in June, at least 10 parents from Village School have joined over 100,000 people in signing the nationwide Wait Until 8th pledge, promising not to give their children a smartphone until at least the end of eighth grade.
This is one piece of evidence of a cresting wave, where adults are increasingly recognizing that, to the extent that cellphones have a place in schools, it should be a more limited one.
Our school leaders should ride that wave to its logical conclusion: the adoption of clear, uniform policies that allow students to focus on participating in classroom discussions and on building genuine, face-to-face — not screen-to-screen — relationships with their peers, even if the state does not require it.
