Students Praise School Phone Ban: ‘My Attention Has Skyrocketed’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Students and faculty in Iowa’s Ottumwa Community are praising their school district’s decision to ban cell phones.
“In about mid-June, we began to think and realize that our district was going to be cell phone free K-9 because it had already been determined that our elementaries were, Liberty was and Evans Junior High had piloted it in the spring and it went super well,” Ottumwa High School Principal Shelley Bramchreiber told the Ottumwa Post.
She continued, “So the question came to us: what if we did a district wide ban? We began a gathering committee with students, community members, staff members, administrators, central office staff and board members. We tried to gather stakeholders from every realm to be part of this committee to see what it would look like in our schools.”
The high school now requires students to lock their phones in a cabinet while on campus during school hours, and the kids are already feeling the benefits of the new policy.
“I think my attention has kind of skyrocketed if that’s the word,” high school senior Madison Shoop told Breitbart. “I was more focused on, like, my phone, and, ‘Oh, my gosh, is that going to go off?’”
Shoop continued, “I just think I was so addicted to it that it was hard for me to look away personally, for me to look away like I would just be scrolling and scrolling and scrolling scrolling. At points in time when my mom talked to me, like, I couldn’t hear because I had my headphones in, I was scrolling through my phone, and I wasn’t paying attention.”
A similar ban will be implemented in the spring 2025 school semester in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Speaking about the reasoning behind the ban, board member Nick Melvoin told CNN, “Our students are glued to their cell phones — not unlike adults. They’re surreptitiously scrolling in school, in class time. They have their head in their hands walking down the hallways. They’re not talking to each other or playing at lunch or recess because they have their AirPods in.”
“There will be differences between schools,” LAUSD School Board President Jackie Goldberg explained. “But the idea is very simple: If you bring your phone to school at all, you park it at the beginning. You’ll put it in a locker or a pouch…and you’ll pick it up on your way home.”
Movieguide® previously reported on school cell phone bans:
Several states and school districts across America are restricting or banning cell phone use.
“As a society, we don’t allow alcohol or drugs in schools. Why should we allow highly-addictive phones to be used in the same setting?” The New York Post asked Aug. 25.
Arizona is one of 11 states to have laws or policies that restrict phone use in schools. America’s second-largest school district, the Los Angeles Unified School District, passed a ban on phone use during the day. The ban is on track to be implemented by Jan. 2025.
Virginia’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, made an executive order to “help bring cellphone-free education to Virginia schools.” Last month, he charged the state’s Department of Education with the task of removing cellphone from public schools.
Some states — Arkansas, Ohio, Delaware and Pennsylvania — have their students place their phones in storage pouches during school hours.
“Arkansas’ phone-free schools’ program isn’t about taking anything away — it’s about giving kids the freedom to learn without distractions,” Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
