Could Oklahoma ban cellphones in schools? One bill is inching closer to approval

EDMOND — A senior at Edmond Santa Fe High School, Teddy Doe has had a cellphone since sixth grade. He routinely uses it during school time, often to do research for assignments on websites that are blocked using the electronic device provided by the school district, but sometimes to kill time once his classwork is finished.

While access to the cellphone during school hours is not a necessity, he says, it’s convenient to have. From his perspective, he doesn’t see students abusing the privilege of having phones available during school hours.

“That’s the modern age, where these kids have all grown up with mobile devices,” said Teddy’s father, Doug Doe. “They’re wired for this stuff. That’s the way they have done everything, so it’s a natural extension of who they are and what they do.”

Multiple cellphone-related bills were introduced this session in the Oklahoma Legislature

Even so, a growing number of superintendents, administrators and teachers see cellphones causing behavior and mental health problems in schools. During the current session of the Oklahoma Legislature, multiple bills advanced that would incentivize districts to develop cellphone-free policies for students during instructional hours.

On Wednesday, one of those bills, Senate Bill 1314, was amended to go much further — it would mandate cellphone-free school campuses in public schools. After a debate lasting more than 35 minutes in the Appropriations Committee, the bill by Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, passed 12-8 and now is eligible to be heard by the full Senate.

Pugh’s bill originally had financial incentives attached to it when it was approved by the Education Committee, which he chairs. But he removed those before it was heard in the Appropriations Committee, citing in part a potential $181 million cost he said the state cannot afford. But neither can the state afford to do nothing, he said.

“This is serious enough in nature that it’s risen to a level where the state needs to have this discussion, and that’s why we’re doing this,” Pugh said.

In addition to Pugh’s bill, companion bills in the state Senate and House of Representatives, authored by Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, and Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, would authorize the Oklahoma State Department of Education to create a one-year pilot program for the 2024-25 academic year. The bills — House Bill 3913 and Senate Bill 1321 — would provide grants to public middle schools, junior high schools and high schools to “incentivize phone-free spaces for student learning.”

Seifried’s bill received Education Committee approval and Caldwell’s bill was approved by a House subcommittee, but neither was heard by their chamber’s respective Appropriations Committees and won’t advance further this session.

Still, the idea of a bill on the topic of cellphone-free campuses originated in the Senate with Seifried. At 31, she is one of the youngest legislators at the Capitol, one young enough to have grown up with cellphones in classrooms but old enough to remember when they weren’t present in great numbers.

“I had my first cellphone in sixth grade. That was very abnormal,” Seifried said. “I didn’t really use it, other than for emergencies. It was not something I thought about very often. Social media hadn’t taken off either, until my senior year of high school. I was one of the last kids to be able to have a somewhat normal upbringing before it just permeated every aspect of our lives.”

Frustrated with the state’s academic outcomes, she developed the idea for her bill after speaking with teachers and officials from schools in her Rogers County district. “We’re trying to look for out-of-the-box, innovative solutions — really, truly searching for an answer,” she said. “I wanted to bring that conversation to the state level.”

Leaders of school districts with cellphone bans already in place are thrilled with the change

Claremore Superintendent Bryan Frazier said his district implemented a cellphone ban for this school year at its Will Rogers Junior High School, which serves grades six through eight. Students must put their phones in their lockers before the first bell rings, he said, and aren’t allowed to access them until the final bell rings to end the school day.

“It’s pretty obvious that students need to be in school, and to be completely in school means you have to be away from your phone,” Frazier said. “In order for school to be effective, kids need to disengage from other stuff, outside noise, and focus on what’s going on.”

Frazier said the program has reduced student discipline issues, including vaping and bullying.

“I think to say that’s going to be eliminated would be a pipe dream at the middle school level, but overall, discipline is better,” he said. “Our goal is, if we can get them to focus on the classroom, student learning will improve.”

Jeremy Atwood, the principal at Silo High School in Bryan County, tells a similar story. The growing southeastern Oklahoma school district had an open cellphone policy for years, but “the more freedom you gave, it all started getting out of hand, with social media and all of the hidden platforms that we as adults didn’t have the ability to see,” he said, estimating that 70% of student disciplinary issues stemmed from social media issues that were brought into the school.

The district now has a zero-tolerance policy, with no cellphones allowed to be used at the school. Students can leave their cellphones in their car, home or locker.

“As far as in the classrooms, the teachers love it,” Atwood said. “The biggest thing we saw, pretty quickly, is that kids were talking to one another again. … We just simply decided that we have to protect that 50 minutes, eight hours a day, in the classroom. Instruction is uninterrupted. That is the most important thing.”

Local control, pushback from parents and students are issues facing legislators, districts

Some legislators who approved Pugh’s bill in the Education Committee did so, but with a caveat, wondering why the Legislature doesn’t just implement a statewide ban, and Pugh took their comments to heart, making the changes in the bill before it was heard in the Appropriations Committee. But this approach circumvents the principle of local control, which many at the Republican-dominated Capitol hold dear — as do nearly all district superintendents.

The chair of the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Roger Thompson, R-Okemah, said he voted against the bill for that reason. Pugh said he’s “very sensitive to the local control issue” but noted the Legislature has usurped local control of schools in other areas, such as mandating certain classes. “We insert ourselves on local control issues all the time.”

That puts him at odds with the superintendent of a large school district he represents.

“I do always believe in local control and that school boards should get to set their own policies for what they want,” Edmond Public Schools Superintendent Angela Grunewald said. “We do have policies. Sometimes those are harder to enforce than you can even imagine. You also have parents that want to be able to get a hold of their child or want their child to be able to get a hold of them.”

As Grunewald noted, parental pushback can be an issue when a district considers a cellphone ban. In an era of well-publicized school shootings, the knowledge their child is just a text away can be reassuring.

“From a safety and security standpoint, I like him being able to have access to it, in case something happens in school,” said Doug Doe, the Edmond parent. “I can see both sides of it, but I like the idea of him (his son) being able to get to a phone.”

Christina Brunt, of Oklahoma City, has a similar belief. Her daughter, Eva, is a freshman at Classen School of Advanced Studies.

“It’s important being able to reach her should an emergency arise, be it at school or in our household,” Brunt said. “Sometimes I need to relay information that’s critical or get a hold of her if something happens at school. The other part of it, it’s not just their physical safety, but their emotional safety. If something happened at lunch or in the classroom or if there’s bullying or if they’re just having a rough time, for them to communicate with me about how they’re feeling is important.”

Eva has another practical reason for wanting her phone at school: “You can text your parents when you forget something at home.”

District leaders understand concerns, but encourage parents to see how cellphone bans work

Frazier, the Claremore superintendent, said he understands such concerns, even as he asks parents to route their communication with their student during school hours through the school office.

“The reality is, when we think about our school safety plan, never ever is a student having a phone part of our emergency plan,” he said. “Never has been, never will be. If you run it through law enforcement, they say (student with phones) just screw things up. If you have to lock down the building and they show up and want to get their kid, nothing good can come of that.

“But that’s difficult for parents, because they’re so used to telling them to call or text when they’re free. It’s been a bit of a process to get used to that. But once they have seen they still have access to their kiddos, they’re OK with it.”

Added Atwood: “The common complaint that we’ve had, everybody is concerned with what might happen. If somebody were to come into the school, I don’t have access to communicate with my child. Our response to that is, you’re worried about what might happen, but we’re worried about every single day in the classroom, and the phone is a distraction for the classroom every single day.”

Those concerns about what might happen led Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, to vote against Pugh’s bill in the Appropriations Committee, even though she’d previously voted for it in the Education Committee hearing.

“Since that time, I have been contacted by many constituents who are concerned that this Legislature would be banning phones (in schools) before guns,” Hicks said. “Their specific language to me was, ‘While guns are emboldened to be in our public schools, my child will continue to have their phone for security and safety reasons,’ and I agree.”

Teddy Doe thinks if cellphone use by students is limited by the state, “there would be some pushback. As a student, it’s a bit of a privacy issue.”

Christina Brunt understands the rationale of those supporting cellphone bans, but wonders if some sort of middle ground can be found.

“Maybe they can have something like a cellphone bin, to put your device in while (teachers) are instructing,” she said. “Something where the device is in safe keeping with a teacher, but they have access to them if they need it. That might be a good compromise.”

Pugh doesn’t know if his bill will become law this year, but he said the conversation is a necessary one.

“I don’t know where this will go,” Pugh told fellow senators. “I don’t know if we’ll get this over the finish line, because all of you that have spoken, whether it be publicly in this committee or privately to me, you’ve raised valid concerns I want to address and I will try my best to do that. But I believe in my heart this is the right thing to do for kids, no matter how hard it is policy-wise for us to figure out.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Cellphone ban in Oklahoma schools closer to approval in Legislature