Approved by the General Assembly in the waning days of the legislative session, Indiana will join three other states with complete bell-to-bell cellphone bans that have an additional provision requiring students not to have access to them at all during the school day. At least 36 states have laws requiring school districts to ban or limit phone usage during the school day, according to Education Week.
Advocates for the new law say it allows students to be students in the classroom, free of distractions and potential cyber bullying during the school day. Skeptics worry that a stricter ban than the state currently has would be difficult to enforce and easy to circumvent.
Indiana’s new cellphone ban, codified in SB 78, applies to cellphones, tablets, laptops, gaming devices and smart watches and requires schools to adopt a no-device policy or a storage policy where a device must be stored away, powered off and inaccessible to a student throughout the school day.
Indiana’s previous device policy allowed for students to access their phones outside of instructional time — meaning that students could use their phones during passing periods and lunch.
The legislation allows for exceptions for students with an individualized education program, a 504 plan, students who need a device for medical purposes, students who need language translation and during emergencies.
In the Region, the strengthened phone ban has been met by some resistance and skepticism from local school administrators. Lake Central School Corp. Superintendent Larry Veracco has updated the School Board on the ban from when it was a pending bill to now an established law signed by the governor.
CRITICS QUESTION HOW LIKELY NEW POLICY WILL BE FOLLOWED
Veracco told the School Board at its Feb. 17 meeting that the school's current cellphone ban is already a “pretty good system right now.” Students currently are required to put their phones away in a classroom’s door hanger during instructional time, he said.
Veracco said that the new law will be a “tough enforcement task,” and not "perfectly clear to parents.”
“Our teachers have found that current cellphone restrictions are most helpful, and that kids are more engaged … I don’t want to sound too negative about it … It’s just that when you ramp it up to a level that may not be easily enforced … I just hope we don’t go backward from where we are,” Veracco said.
“If something were to happen near a school, or at a school, or in a school, they want to be able to reach their child … and their exception is that they can do that,” he said. “They don’t ever say, ‘I just need to talk to my child anytime during the day about nothing …’ but when the safety piece comes into play, that’s gonna get some people fired up."
The new law doesn’t single out eyewear technology, such as Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses and Google's Android XR glasses, nor smart rings.
“The technology is probably going to outpace the legislation … and they’re gonna continue to be ahead of us for a while,” Veracco said.
Veracco said he was also skeptical of students who say they would leave their phone in a car, in their locker or at home during the school day. “How likely is that to be followed?” he asked, before pointing out that if the school were to try to collect phones at the beginning of the day, students might turn in a bogus phone if they have to, and still use their regular phone during the school day.
ADVOCATES SAY ENFORCEMENT CHALLENGE IS NON-ISSUE
Lina Nealon, the director of strategic partnerships for the Institute of Families and Technology, said that just because a policy might be challenging to enforce doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be created.
The Institute of Families and Technology, a self-described group that envisions a society where families can be freed from the worries of digital technology harming children and hindering their healthy development, also runs a “Phone-Free Schools State Report Card” that grades states and their legislation on the strength of their phone bans in public schools. Nealon is the project lead for that venture.
Citing the latest research from the University of Pennsylvania, Nealon said that bell-to-bell bans are becoming the norm and that strict phone policies are associated with better teacher-reported outcomes. Students also performed better when phones were out of sight.
“We really want to applaud Indiana as one of four states in the nation to have this golden standard,” Nealon said. Other states include North Dakota, Kansas and Rhode Island for their bell-to-bell inaccessible phone laws.
Nealon also said that Indiana’s current phone ban system allows for what neurologists refer to as “cravings,” because the instructional period isn’t long enough for students to get their phones completely out of their minds.
Nealon said that while the state created this inaccessible phone mandate, it is also ultimately up to the schools to decide how they wish to enforce it. Options include turning phones in to a centralized location, using a cubby or locker system, magnetic pouches to keep them secure or even simple remedies like keeping phones in lockers, at home or in pencil cases.
A key stance that the Institute of Family and Technology has is that the transition to a complete cellphone ban does not result in discipline that makes a student miss out on school work, Nealon said, referring to how additional education or intervention may be necessary, but that punitive action is not the way to go.
Additional education for parents might be needed as well, she said — something that Veracco and other Region superintendents have said might be necessary if some are used to being able to speak to their children while they are at school.
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