Opinion: School cellphone ban is dangerous for kids

Parents and teachers, beware of what lawmakers are really proposing to lock in the ban box. (Students already know.) As a parent and former schoolteacher, I am very concerned about Utah’s proposed legislation to universally ban cellphones during school hours.
Yes, phones can be a distraction in class, social media can affect kids’ mental health and these problems need attention — but a legislated, universal cellphone ban is not the best solution to these problems and seems “kill-the-beast” extreme. The other side of the coin needs careful consideration for more reasonable and wise legislation, if legislation is needed. Cellphones are helpful and good and should be appropriately accessible to students in the classroom during all school hours for the following reasons:
Kids need direct, efficient and available communication with parents during emergencies. If a fire, shooting, natural disaster or the “big-one” earthquake happens, better to have our kids’ phones accessible in backpacks to connect with rescuers and parents instead of locked in a box by the school entrance. In an emergency, the office phone can’t accommodate 2,500 kids. No child should be forced by law to be without access to help via their phone within the classroom during school hours, ever.
Minor student emergencies happen every day: accidents, forgotten homework, no lunch money, lost permission slip, etc. Students need the freedom to solve these problems directly with parents in a couple of seconds during class breaks or class downtime without having to go to the office.
Additionally, essential communication needs to flow during the seven-hour school day between teams and coaches, teachers and students, carpools, etc. Often, important communication cannot wait until lunch breaks or after school, and too often, class breaks are not long enough for students to go to their lockers or the office to call. Students, especially teens with changing job shifts, need their phone as an essential tool to manage daily life in an increasingly technological world. Havoc would result if adults’ phones were universally banned during workday hours. Further, restricting someone’s control over their life details minimizes independence, which increases anxiety and depression.
Facing the limitless challenges of a war-zone school day, students need immediate, accessible parental support in critical moments. When they are having anxiety or a breakdown, a parent can be there to know how to encourage and counsel, privately and quickly. “I don’t know what to do,” “I’m so stressed,” “I’m about to throw up can you please check me out,” “I hate life.” Kids need their primary backup team. Don’t sever their connection with parents during school hours — protect it.
Tech-savvy teachers use the phones to their advantage and make them part of their classroom, such as with Quizlet. Tech-savvy students look up facts online, research on their own and take pictures of the Calculus equations or Latin vocabulary on the whiteboard to study later. These are important, good things we should encourage, not ban. Policy Project, a ban proponent, states on their website that they promote policies “to remove barriers to opportunity … because when every individual has access to opportunity, communities flourish.” Removing students’ access to technology creates a barrier to opportunity. Prepare kids for the tech world and train them to appropriately find information at their fingertips.
Promoting the ban, State Sen. Lincoln Fillmore stated, “The goal of this legislation is to empower school districts, teachers, and students.” Empowering teachers is not legislating classroom management. Rather, it is giving teachers freedom to adapt to circumstances in their individual classrooms without breaking state mandates or requesting district approval for lesson plans that include cellphones. We should not legislate classroom management — that is sacred space that belongs to teachers.
Empowering students is not taking away phones. It is teaching them to use their phones responsibly, instead of launching them into young adulthood without opportunities to practice prioritization skills. We teach drivers-ed principles before kids can drive; we can similarly teach kids healthy cellphone principles. This will empower communities more than policies. (Colleges and companies will thank us.)
Passing state legislation to ban “distraction” is a slippery slope. Consistency is problematic. Teens already wonder why their phones are restricted when teachers check their texts in class. Should we ban other distractions for students? Computers? Peers? Daydreaming? Should we ban phones for adults multitasking in board meetings? Or from cars because cellphones are a distraction to drivers, disregarding safety and navigation needs? Consider the root implications of this tool-vs-weapon legislation. Should we ban pencils to prevent potential poking and doodling? Cellphones, like pencils, are tools, not weapons.
Legislators, thank you, thank you for caring about our students and teachers. But please consider the middle ground. If you must legislate, allow students appropriate access to phones in the classroom and teachers the freedom to manage those classrooms. Or instead of legislation, promote programs that teach students how to prioritize cellphone use. Connect teachers with ideas that currently work well in classrooms, such as charging stations in the back of the classroom, stay-in-backpack rules or accessible attendance phone pockets. Add a unit teaching healthy cellphone use to the curriculum of state-required digital-literacy.
Please do not universally ban cellphones during school hours. This would sever vital communication between parents and children, lessen safety and security in emergencies, hamper student and teacher independence, set precarious legislation implications and prevent access to learning tools that empower students to succeed in an increasingly technological world.
Judy Davis is a mother of teenagers and a former teacher who lives in Cedar Hills, Utah.