Pa. proposal would keep cellphones from students during the school day

The state Senate is poised to move forward on legislation to restrict cellphones in K-12 schools, although the specifics of the policy — whether an outright ban, or something less stringent — are still being worked out.

At a hearing held by the Senate Education Committee Tuesday, the majority of those who testified supported some type of statewide rule restricting student phone use, although details on the restrictions are expected to be left up to school districts.

Committee chair Sen. Lynda Schlegel Culver, R-Columbia County, said following the hearing that she expects to run a bill on the issue this fall. Pennsylvania is a relative outlier; most states in the nation have some type of overarching requirements on students’ phone use, saying it helps reduce distractions in the classroom.

Notable in Tuesday’s hearing was testimony from the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), the state’s influential teachers’ union, which had opposed any top-down mandate from the states on how teachers should handle the phone issue.

But that stance has changed, PSEA President Aaron Chapin said, and the union is now supportive of a “bell-to-bell” ban that would prohibit students from using their cellphones from the morning start to the afternoon dismissal, with limited exceptions.

Having a state mandate would push school boards and administrators to address the phone-use issue and take pressure off teachers who are struggling to enforce phone rules in their classroom ad hoc, Chapin said.

“I just was with our board of directors this past weekend, and they’re coming to us with these stories, and they’re coming from their students, and their students are begging them to change the climate in our buildings,” Chapin said.

“We have to start somewhere. If we ignore this, we’re doing our students a terrible disservice,” he continued.

A bipartisan bell-to-bell ban bill has already been introduced in the Senate. It would mandate that the governing body of every public school in the state adopt a phone policy that will “prohibit the use of a mobile device during the school day while on school property” and also “establish the manner in which a student’s possession of a mobile device is to be restricted.”

Several companies sell locking phone pouches used by some schools – as well as concert venues and others – to corral mobile devices. But in most cases, several testifiers said, students will willingly keep their phones in their pockets or backpacks if they know there’s a hard-and-fast rule against using them.

“They wanted to remove the distraction, but no one student wanted to be left without the technology,” Raymond Omer, the superintendent of two small districts in Mercer County, said of his students. “So long as we had rules in place that everyone was following on cellphones being banned, the kids were OK with it.”

One of the districts Omer oversees adopted a hard phone ban; the other didn’t, allowing students to use their phones between classes and during lunch. The former has seen “a lot less anti-social behavior,” Omer said.

“We could tell you that the school has decompressed,” he said. “The feedback from the teachers is that the kids are more intentionally focused on academics, they’re engaging from bell-to-bell quicker, there’s less transition time in getting the class started.”

Danville Area High School student Atticus Mitchell said his school has done well with a rule that allows students to take their phones out at lunch and in the hallways. That level of usage has built a level of trust to where students “don’t feel the need to get it out, they don’t feel the need to break the rules,” Mitchell said.

Permitting some phone use between classes will “still allow the freedom to be responsible” and help students learn to self-regulate, said Milton Area High School student Camryn Hoover. Students are given one warning for using a phone during class time, after which they must surrender their phone to the principal’s office for the rest of the day, Hoover said.

The main question for Senators is how detailed to make the legislation, and whether to spell out exactly how a ban is to be enforced and what exceptions might be allowed.

“We are trying to strike that balance, not to be overly prescriptive in terms of what the school districts do, how they implement the policy — because we understand the importance of local control — but to make a firm position what the state’s policy is,” said Sen. Steve Santarsiero, D-Bucks County, one of the authors of the existing bill.

“After all, doing less than that is essentially what we have now, which is a patchwork of policies across the state and we believe strongly that a uniform rule is needed,” Santarsiero continued.

“I’m a little uncomfortable closing the door to any exceptions,” said Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-Allegheny County. If a student has an illness in the family, for instance, schools should err on the side of trusting them to use their phones to stay in touch with loved ones, Williams said.

“I do think that there might be exceptions that we’re not thinking of, and treating you as an adult who can be responsible in that usage is important,” Williams said.

“I think that’s one of the most common concerns I hear from parents,” that they want to be able to reach their child in an emergency, Culver said.

As several testifiers and Senators noted, a growing body of evidence shows that school phone bans correlate with better student achievement, and that lower-performing students receive the biggest academic boost when phones are taken out of classrooms.

Some studies have also indicated a spike in disciplinary actions after phone bans are introduced, but those dissipate after an adjustment period. Data also suggests that improved performance and behavior are due in large part to students skipping school less frequently after phone bans are rolled out.