by Ty Tagami | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A mandatory cellphone ban could be coming for all public high schools in Georgia after the positive outcomes reported by schools that have already implemented such policies.
A new state law will require every public elementary and middle school in the state to lock up students’ phones and other personal devices starting next fall, but many already have such policies in place, including at high schools.
Teachers have reported strong support, with 92% backing an extension of the ban to high schools, according to a survey of 3,000 educators by Georgia Southern University detailed at a state Senate hearing Wednesday.
And educators and advocates who testified recounted similar enthusiasm at their schools and among parents.
Teachers and administrators have seen academic gains accompany the silencing of phone notifications. Studies show distractions bump minds off task, sending students’ minds careering. Banishing cellphones has also removed a tool used by miscreants to bully peers, coordinate fights and unleash other mayhem.
Students behaved better at Lakeside High School in DeKalb County when the phones were taken away last year, and they interacted with each other more, said Susan Stoddard, the principal there. “You heard the joyous fun of school in the hallways. They were talking to one another,” she said.
The district experimented with phone bans at several schools, then measured the impact.
“It was transformational academically, behaviorally and socially,” Stoddard said, noting that prior to implementation, classroom observers had counted an average of 16 notifications on each student’s phone every half hour.
That added up to nearly 300 disruptions per classroom each half hour, she said.
Similarly, Marietta City Schools banned phones in middle school last year. Superintendent Grant Rivera said district surveys found near-universal approval among teachers. He said the students themselves reported a 22% improvement in classroom behavior in the Georgia Student Health Survey, an annual questionnaire administered by the Georgia Department of Education.
Rivera’s enthusiastic testimony about the policy during the legislative session last winter may have helped to convince lawmakers to back the lower grades prohibition. House Bill 340 passed with broad bipartisan support.
Rivera said Wednesday that he needed a similar ban at the high school level but lacked community support for it. Too many parents had grown accustomed to reaching their teens, he said.
He wished lawmakers luck if they tried to extend the prohibition.
A refrain among critics of a high school ban is that parents need to be able to reach their kids if a shooter enters the building, a concern amplified by what happened at Apalachee High School last fall.
Police counter that cellphones make schools less safe in an emergency by distracting students from following instructions.
Stoddard said she routinely told parents that students drill to stay silent when an active shooter enters the building. The ding of an ill-timed text could draw the killer to the classroom, she would explain to parents who complained about Lakeside High’s ban. “I had to be very blunt,” she said, telling them, “It could be the difference between life or death for your child.”
The main sponsor of HB 340 had excluded high schools from his bill precisely because he worried about a backlash from parents. This was out of keeping with other states that prohibited phones from all schools, but Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, reiterated his concern about parent resistance at Wednesday’s hearing, counseling patience. He predicted that more parents and students would be receptive to the idea after rising high school students have experienced the benefits of phone-free middle school.
Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, a member of the committee, said he was “just wondering out loud” if that was a better course.
But Sen. Sally Harrell, D-Atlanta, seemed unwilling to wait.
The hearing was the last in a series by the bipartisan study committee that she has helmed with Sen. Shawn Still, R-Johns Creek.
The senators have been exploring the impact on children of electronic devices, social media and artificial intelligence. Harrell has been emphatic about introducing legislation that pushes back against the encroachment of technology companies into the lives of children.
“I have a feeling that this discussion is going to continue into the legislative session,” she said, “but with a bill in committee.”
