by Ty Tagami | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A bill that would ban cellphones in all of Georgia’s public elementary and middle schools has cleared another hurdle toward becoming law.
House Bill 340 passed a Senate committee on Tuesday and could get a vote by the full Senate soon.
The House of Representatives approved the measure two weeks ago amid rising frustration with social media and other distractions.
Experts had testified in prior hearings about the impact of smartphones on student behavior, mental health, and academic performance. Relentless notifications are a constant distraction and can lead to fighting and other misbehavior, they said.
As with earlier hearings, there were two main concerns expressed at the Senate Children and Families Committee on Tuesday.
The first: how do parents reach their kids during an emergency, a rising concern as school shootings become more common?
The answer, said the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners: experts say smartphones are a distraction during emergencies too, and a dangerous one. Students should be following their teacher’s lead rather than phoning or texting their parents, he said. The legislation requires schools to have policies for parent communication once an emergency has ended.
The second concern: why not ban cellphones in high schools, too?
That could be coming in a couple of years, Hilton said. Once middle schoolers get used to the absence of phones in their classrooms, it’ll be easier to remove the devices from the high schools that those kids will later attend, he said.
A half dozen states have already banned cellphones in schools, with at least a half dozen others enacting partial restrictions.
Miranda Williams, a former education policy advisor for Gov. Brian Kemp who is now a lobbyist for ExcelinEd, an advocacy group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said half the states are considering such legislation this year. She also said existing bans have produced positive effects on mental health and academic performance.
HB 340 passed the Senate committee on a 4-1 vote and now heads to the Senate Rules Committee, which will decide whether to place it on the Senate floor for a vote on final passage.
