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David Nicholas: Earlier this year, the Michigan legislature created a new law mandating a cell phone ban in public and charter school classrooms.
But some education advocates say it doesn't go far enough. The Institute for Families and Technology is one of those groups. They gave Michigan's new law a "C" in its latest report card study.
To find out more, WCMU's Tina Sawyer talked with Emily Rapp from the Institute for Families and Technology, who started the conversation by explaining the report card's grading scale.
Emily Rapp: We grade them from the following rubric. An A grade is a phone-free school law that bans phones from the start of the school day to the end of the school day or from bell to bell, and also requires that phones be inaccessible throughout the entire school day. That grade rubric goes all the way down to a D, meaning phone laws are left up to the school districts. So the state has put forward a law, but said to districts, hey, you can put forward guidance as it doesn't have any mandatory elements in the law.
Tina Sawyer: Why did Michigan get a C then?
ER: Yes, so Michigan's HB 4141, which is passed into law, meaning that that law is only banning phone usage during instructional time, so students can access their phones during recess and during passing periods. For the Phone-Free Schools report card, that can also be fairly detrimental to student learning, to student engagement, to building relationships in schools, and puts a lot of pressure on teachers to be enforcing those provisions during their classes. This is alleviated by bell-to-bell laws where phones are completely banned throughout the entire school day. And actually, the new study out from the University of Michigan cites that about half of schools in Michigan currently have bell-to-bell policies in the book.
TS: How do you enforce that?
ER: It really, there's a lot of different ways that one could enforce Bell to Bell policy nationwide. Of the four states that have received an A grade, meaning that there's inaccessible stores throughout the entire school day, districts can decide kind of what that looks like. You know, they can either do a centralized collection of phones at the beginning of the day. They can have pouches that cut off access to cell service. We are also seeing some in other states that don't have inaccessible stores say the expectation could be that phones are off and away in backpacks or lockers, but, or ideally, some districts may be even saying that phones can't come to school at all. but we're seeing a lot of variation in terms of enforcement.
TS: Okay. All right. And I understand other states have put into policy too the bell-to-bell status. Are they finding different results as opposed to like Michigan?
ER: We are seeing, actually, neighboring Indiana just passed a law banning phones for the entire school day and requiring that phones be inaccessible and stored away for the entire day. Anecdotally, lunchrooms are louder. More students are taking out books from libraries. There's less bullying taking place. And we are excited to track the progress of schools that are putting these phone bans into place for the entire school day. There's immense amount of mental health benefits and academic benefits, and we're going to be tracking that closely.
TS: Well, what about security issues? I'm sure there are questions about that with parents and some kids as well, not having the phones available in the event of an emergency.
ER: Absolutely. Actually, the National Association of School Resource Officers has come out and stated that bell-to-bell bands actually help keep kids safer. If students potentially are on their phones during an emergency, that can cause a lot of confusion. We've seen instances where parents may be coming to the school and emergency services vehicles maybe can't even get to the school. We really believe that it's the responsibility of the school to be putting out emergency information. There's a national momentum towards bell-to-bell bills, and again, we will be continuing to update states' grades as they strengthen their laws.
