By DAVID BOYLE
The Alaska State Board of Education passed a resolution last month on the use of cell phones in school classrooms. The board stated that cell phones in the classroom interfere with students’ ability to maintain attention and engagement in classrooms.
That would seem fairly common sense: If students are playing games, watching movies, or texting other students, they probably aren’t paying much attention to what the teacher is teaching.
The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology confirmed this in 2017 research by noting that students distracted by mobile phones “perform worse on assessments than those who were not distracted.”
Pew Research cited that 72% of high school teachers say cell phones are problematic because students are distracted from learning.
And in 2020, 77% of U.S. schools moved to ban cellphones for nonacademic purposes.
Many states are working on limiting cell phone usage in the classroom. Idaho’s Gov. Brad Little announced Executive Order 2024-11, the “Phone Free Learning Act,” which encourages schools to implement a policy restricting cell phones. This Act rewards districts $5,000 for adopting a policy limiting cell phones in the classroom.
Colorado is offering districts $50,000 for adopting a policy limiting cell phone usage in the classroom.
And the Los Angeles Unified School District is banning cell phones in the classroom by 2025.
And the Alaska State Board of Education states that “cyberbullying, harassment and dissemination of inappropriate content” are a real problem in our schools.
The board has tasked the Department of Education and Early Development to write a policy prohibiting the use of cell phones during class hours. It also “urges” district school boards to implement the same policies.
Local control will determine if these policies are adopted by the school boards in Alaska.
If these policies are adopted, maybe students will be less stressed, less bullied, and need less mental health assistance. And maybe, just maybe, student achievement will increase.
What do you think?
David Boyle is the education writer for Must Read Alaska.
