State law forces schools to ban cell phones

When Indiana became the second state to ban wireless device use in school classrooms earlier this month, it produced some national headlines. But in at least three eastern Indiana school districts, it’s been pretty much business as usual.

A new law written by state senators Jeff Raatz of Richmond and Stacy Donato of Logansport requires all public and charter schools to adopt and publish a policy banning wireless communications devices from classrooms during instructional times.

On a recent mailer to residents in his district, Raatz reported, “Cell phones are a huge distraction for K-12 students. Indiana is now one of the first states with a law limiting cell phone use in the classroom.”

In a July 5 article about the spread of cell phone bans, email newsletter Axios What Next quoted David Banks, New York City schools chancellor: “They’re not just a distraction. Kids are fully addicted now to phones.”

For Northeastern Wayne, Western Wayne and Nettle Creek schools, complying with the new law means just tweaking policies that had already been put in place.

“We’d been experiencing attention issues in our classrooms, especially in the secondary (high school) level. Most kids don’t have cellphones until seventh or eighth grade,” Northeastern Superintendent Dr. Matthew Hicks said.

Western Wayne’s board will consider adopting its new policy in August and Northeastern will consider policy revisions soon, if needed.

“Nettle Creek has a policy in place already that limits cell phone use to before school, after school, lunch periods, and other non-instructional times,” said Emily Schaeffer, superintendent. 

During the last school year, Northeastern and Western Wayne both started requiring high school students to put cellphones and other wireless devices into pouches hung on the back of classroom doors during instructional time. Nettle Creek also uses the pouches but students are not required to use them.

Superintendent Andy Stover of Western Wayne said the pouches are similar to shoe organizers that some people have at home. Each pouch is numbered. When students leave the room, they pick up their phone from their pouch.

“Before we did it, I thought that the kids would be furious,” Hicks said about Northeastern students. “But the majority of the kids will put their phone in the pouch and move on.”

At Hagerstown Jr.-Sr. High School, “Students can certainly store in a place they feel is best, but the cell phone must be ‘out of sight’ during instructional time,” Schaeffer said.

Hicks said Northeastern’s school board passed its policy after learning of the General Assembly’s intent to pass the ban. Northeastern’s previous policy had given individual teachers discretion over wireless devices in their classroom. Some allowed students to have them, some did not, and students sometimes felt as if they were being discriminated against because of the difference in rules, he said.

Northeastern Middle School students must store wireless devices in their lockers. They can use them when changing classes and during lunch.

Stover and Hicks said the procedure seems to answer concerns of families who want the ability to stay in contact with their children during the school day, providing updates on after-school activities, rides home or medical appointments. Some students need to use their phones to monitor medical conditions, such as diabetes.

Hicks said families need to be able to have contact with children in emergencies. In a previous job, he was an assistant principal at a school when it experienced a shooting.

“I could not stomach a situation where an unthinkable incident like a shooting would happen and families were not able to contact their child,” he said. “How important that text is from a student.”

The Indiana ban includes exemptions for medical and emergency use and for students with individual learning needs that require a use of a wireless device. The law also allows teachers to ask students to use their devices for classroom educational purposes.

Stover said that at Western Wayne “We understand that in the adult world, cellphones are next to you at all times. Part of this (policy) is learning when it’s appropriate to use cellphones and when it is not.”

Some impetus for statewide wireless device bans in schools comes from a group calling itself the Phone-Free Schools Movement. Their website says “All kids deserve a phone free school.” Their mission statement is to “Provide youth the freedom to excel academically and develop socially without the pressures and harms of phones and social media during the school day.”