Schools in municipalities across Connecticut are embracing cellphone bans at varying levels. Should the state have one policy for all?
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Theo Peck-Suzuki to discuss his article, “Most agree CT schools should restrict cellphones. But how — and how much?” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read Theo’s story here.
WSHU: Hello, Theo, you recently moved from Ohio, so let's start by welcoming you to Connecticut. You've observed that, though Ohio is a red state and Connecticut is a blue state with vast differences in geography and political alignments, both states have leaders who really want cell phones out of classrooms. Can you just talk a little bit about that?
TPS: Yeah, so it's been a little while since I covered this, so I don't remember the exact specifics, but Ohio's Governor Mike DeWine (R) made it clear that he was very interested in having schools really take a look at their cell phone policies and start to oppose some limits. And so when I got here to Connecticut and I saw that this was a priority, not only of the legislature, but also of Governor Ned Lamont (D), I thought, oh, okay, this is, this is actually something that I'm quite familiar with.
WSHU: So, how are both states approaching it? What are the similarities, any differences?
TPS: You know the the latest that I have seen from the Ohio Department of Education is that districts are, in fact, required to adopt a policy prohibiting cell phone use by students during the instructional day, and I believe there are some carve outs for students who need cell phones, for example, if if they have a disability, so if they have an IEP or a 504 plan, those are federal exceptions. So the state has to allow those, and so school districts are able to figure out the exceptions there. But that is, that is the latest sort of guidance from the Ohio Department of Education, that the phones are really supposed to be pretty much not in use during the school day. So I would say, based on that, that it is a little more rigid than what Connecticut currently has, which is, you said, there is this kind of off and away, as Meriden has it, districts given some latitude to sort of interpret the guidance from the State Board of Education in the way that they feel best suits their needs. It's far different from a bell-to-bell ban.
WSHU: So, what's being considered right now? Would it be a bell-to-bell ban?
TPS: A statewide, bell-to-bell ban. So that would be from the start of the school day to the end of the school day; students do not use or have access to their cell phones. Again, there are exceptions if the student has a 504 plan or an IEP.
WSHU: However, we do have an argument here where some parents and some members of the legislature have also adopted this argument that, you know, having a bell-to-bell ban would prevent students from being able to get in touch with their parents if there's an emergency. Safety concerns. How is that playing out in the discussions in Connecticut right now?
TPS: So that's a very big concern for parents. And you know, I think the response to that concern that I have heard from supporters of the statewide belt-to-bell ban is, look, it's very understandable that parents want to know that they can reach their kids if there's an emergency. And it's also very true that school crises are unfortunately getting more and more common at the same time. If you look at what is actually required to ensure, to the best of everyone's ability, that students are safe, many teachers and also some school administrators I've spoken with say, Listen, it actually is not helpful to have kids pulling out their phone if, for example, there's an active shooter in the building. One teacher put it to me quite bluntly. He said, I need all of the students to be 100% focused on me in a situation like that. My goal is not for them to text you in an emergency. It's for them to be able to hug you when they get home. Many of these teachers who support a statewide bell-to-bell ban are themselves parents, you know, so they also have these anxieties, but at the same time, I think it is profoundly reassuring to be able to communicate with your child if they are in a crisis situation, and to take that away from people is very challenging.
WSHU: Another challenging issue is the educators who say having cell phones and teaching responsible use of technology is important in a school environment and taking them away, you're not able to teach. That, you know, is the responsibility aspect of dealing with technology.
TPS: Yeah. So this is a concern that I heard in particular from Meriden, which is trying to take a really sort of proactive approach in incorporating cell phones into various instructional activities. And it is something that also seems to resonate with some of the students. I spoke with some students who felt that being in a situation where the phones are available, but not where they're expected to kind of manage it themselves, they do feel like they are learning that skill. And also, along with that, you know, there's a sense that if you demonstrate that you're better able to manage having that phone, then you have sometimes more flexibility or more privileges that get built into that.
The counterargument to that, that I've heard, is that some teachers say, you know, I really don't see much instructional benefit or otherwise to kids. And I think other people say, the reason that we send kids to school is that we send them there to learn. They are not going to learn those things as well if their phone is always nearby. And if you feel that those things are important to learn, then you should just remove the obstacles to learning. I think that critics, or people who feel that the bell-to-bell ban is a good idea, just are not persuaded by the idea of teaching personal responsibility as a reason, a good enough reason to keep that distraction in the school.
WSHU: There's this feeling that the state is overbearing and that local authorities are in a better position to determine these within the guidelines that have been put forth by the Education Department. How do you think it's shaping up on the Education Committee? Do you think we're gonna have a bell-to-bell band statewide? Because the governor's behind this, and that puts a lot of weight behind it.
TPS: [Education Committee co-chair] Representative Jennifer Leeper (D-Fairfield) seems very strongly behind it. I'm still new enough to Connecticut politics that I don’t have the sense of some of my much more experienced colleagues about what's going on behind the scenes or where things are likely to go. From what I have seen, it certainly seems like the leadership, both in the Democratic caucus in the General Assembly and, of course, the governor, are really behind this. I think the question, as far as I can tell, is, does it have the momentum to get across the finish line in the short session when there are other big things, particularly school funding, that are also really high-priority objectives?
