Parent group proposes cellphone ban at Wake public schools during school board meeting

A group of Raleigh leaders, parents and medical professionals is pushing Wake County school officials to ban mobile devices in schools across the district.

Members of the group — including former Raleigh Councilwoman Nicole Stewart, a family doctor and others — requested the ban Tuesday at a meeting of the Wake County Board of Education. The group is worried about mental health and academic issues stemming from mobile device use.

“It’s time for us to collectively take this action to ban phones, just like we banned tobacco back in the 90s,” Stewart said.

The request comes as state and local leaders have pushed for cellphone bans during the school day. The National Center for Education Statistics reported that 76% of public schools prohibited “non-academic cell phone use” during the 2021-2022 school year.

Several counties in North Carolina have already done that and feedback in those counties indicates students are paying more attention in class and aren’t too bothered by not having their phones because they’re not missing anything happening online if their peers don’t have access to their phones, either, state officials have said.

“Constant interruption is a huge part of it. Children being interrupted in school ruins their attention, brings down their grades and interrupts the teachers, who are constantly trying to learn on a constant basis,” Stewart said. “It’s a lot of it’s that constant attention and addiction that we need to overcome so they can be successful, productive human beings in the future.”

The Wake County school board doesn’t have a district-wide policy on cellphones. Instead it lets individual schools determine cellphone policies and enforcement. Many schools ban them from being used in classrooms. But a ban can mean different things at different schools.

One school could ban them and require students to check them into a pocket or box at the beginning of the school day or at the beginning of a class. Another school could ban them but not require students to turn them in at all, leading students to continue to use them during class and teachers to enforce the rules while trying to teach.

Matthew Lahoud, a high school student in Wake County, disagrees with the proposal.

“Taking a way a student’s resources for potential learning is very harmful to the student,” he said. “While you can argue from different perspectives that it can be a detrimental distraction to students, I would counter that, and say the more resources that students have to better their education, the more they can grow.”

School employees and educators have told WRAL News that cellphones can be distracting during the school day and they can be used for bullying beyond the school bell.

Dr. Brewer Eberly, a family physician, said he and other medical professionals are concerned about the future doctors after seeing how student’s attention spans are being impacted by cellphone use.

“We’re nervous about what it’s doing at a minimum,” he said. “Even if it’s the case that social media is neutral for example, it just seems pretty clear that smart phones are not supportive of a student flourishing in the classroom environment.”

Lahoud told WRAL News that while he recognizes that phones in school have become an issue, he believes there are more possible solutions than an all-out ban.

“It’s not necessarily the phone or even the student’s problem. It can be addressed as maybe classrooms need to be more engaging to the student, or cater to our needs,” he said.

Many parents don’t restrict their children’s cellphone use at home and many want their children to have phones during the school day in case of emergency or to keep tabs on their whereabouts.

If children weren’t able to access their cellphones during the day, they could still be reached via a telephone call to the school.

“The best way to think about this is it’s a collective action issue. And if we all do it together, we can all stand hard together, firm together as parents and do the right thing for our kiddos,” Stewart said.

The school board didn’t make any decisions on a ban Tuesday. Instead, the board would have to discuss the issue in a committee before ultimately making a decision. That process would likely take months — if the idea went anywhere in the first place.

“I am hopeful that we’re seeing more smiling faces at school, less kids looking at their phones all the time, grade levels, improving mental health levels improving,” Stewart said. “I think it could really do incredible things for our Wake County kids, but then hopefully it’s a chain reaction and kids across North Carolina will also feel the same effects just like we’re seeing it across the nation right now.”

Stewart said she’s hopeful the proposal is made into the agenda item to be voted on in the future.

Last week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order to establish guidance and policies for local school systems in the commonwealth.

Last year, Florida became the first state to crack down on phones in school with a new law. Indiana and Ohio passed their own laws this year, while several other states have recently introduced what is becoming known as “phone-free schools” legislation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.