Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- A Wisconsin school shooting reignited the debate on cellphone use in schools.
- Experts suggest a balanced approach, avoiding total bans.
- Utah's Canyons School District allows flexibility in cellphone policies for safety and education.
SALT LAKE CITY — A second-grade teacher at Abundant Life Christian School made what was possibly the first call to 911 when a student opened fire Monday.
Earlier reports erroneously said that the call came from a second-grade student, sparking robust discussion of what role, if any, cellphones should play in schools during a shooting or other disaster.
And while the spark for the conversation fizzled with news an adult placed the call, discussion on whether cellphones and smartwatches should be banned from classrooms has been ongoing for months, even years. Events like the shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, where two were killed and six others injured, ramp up rather than tamp down the debate. Police said the shooter, reportedly a 15-year-old female student, took her own life.
The most recent school shooting comes at a time when state lawmakers, school districts and others are pondering or actually banning students' cellphones in school. That, in turn, has some parents and others wondering whether phones are actually a safety help should something dire occur.
Some experts say that, while not rare enough, school shootings are less likely than the harm of cellphones in school, while others worry that safety and communication in a crisis will be compromised without them.
Balancing cellphone pluses and minuses in school
National school safety expert Kenneth S. Trump believes the right policy is somewhere in the middle between a total ban and rampant device use. He told the Deseret News it makes little sense to completely ban a tool that can be used to receive alerts or call for help in an emergency. But it's also not a good idea to let the distracting qualities and negative aspects of cellphones and smartwatches in schools overtake common sense.
"There are polar opposite arguments in favor of, and against, banning cellphones in schools," said Trump, who has a doctorate in education and is the president of National School Safety and Security Services. "These decisions need to be made at the local school level with up-front engagement of all stakeholders. At a minimum, there should be reasonable and clearly communicated and enforced restrictions around appropriate time and type of use during school if schools choose to permit students to have and use phones."
He noted a need for "a delicate balance between having and enforcing reasonable rules while not creating an unenforceable mandate that leaves educators spending more time being the 'cellphone police' and creating conflicts than it does in resolving the negative aspects of students using cellphones in schools."
Trump said the pendulum has gone back and forth over time: Put phones away. Use them to teach. No, put them away.
His preferred approach would be that schools and policymakers craft a formal crisis communications plan that considers the positive and negative aspects of cellphone use in schools. Phones can help or hinder, he said. The goal is to create strong emergency guidelines and crisis communication plans.
Utah is among the states that have been pondering whether to ban cellphones in schools, with opinions strong on both sides of the issue. Gov. Spencer Cox has urged students, parents and administrators to get cellphones out of the classroom. Some Utah legislators have proposed banning cellphone and smartwatch use in public school classrooms by having phones placed in a cubby or locker.
No bill has passed banning cellphones in school, but it's expected that the issue will be front and center when the Utah Legislature convenes in 2025, including a bill that will propose a ban.
How one school district tackles competing concerns
Balance is the approach that Utah's Canyons School District has tried to take in setting cellphone usage policy, a district spokeswoman, Kirsten Stewart, told the Deseret News. She said that the district "recognizes the evolving role of technology in our daily lives and in education." Because technology can be educational but may also distract, the district has adopted a policy that "gives flexibility to schools in setting expectations for the responsible and appropriate use of personal electronic devices in their classrooms."
How a cellphone policy is implemented may vary by school or even by class, Stewart said. In some schools, teachers may ask students to put their phones in a pocket organizer that hangs prominently in the classroom. The same teachers may invite students to retrieve their phones and use them as part of a lesson or group activity.
Other schools could tell students to keep their cellphones in their pockets or backpacks during the entire school day, including lunch. "But exceptions are always made for safety reasons," Stewart said. "We may have a student with diabetes who needs their device for glucose monitoring or a student who needs their device as part of a learning accommodation."
Preventing student access to phones in an emergency is never the intent, she added. "In fact, our lockdown protocols include instructions for students to silence their ringers and communicate via text," Stewart said.
