Atlanta (AP) – Florida was the first state to pass a law that regulated the operate of mobile phones in schools in 2023.
Only two years later, half of all countries have laws that act rather soon.
This year, the invoices in the states, which are as different as New York and Oklahoma, have injected by legislators and reflects a broad consensus that phones are bad for children.
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Republicans express similar feelings.
“This is not just an academic bill,” said Republican MP Scott Hilton after Georgia’s draft law, which only prohibits K-8 telephones in the classes, expired in March. “This is a legislative proposal for mental health. It is a legislative proposal for public security.”
So far, 25 countries have passed laws, with eight other states and the District of Columbia implementing rules or making recommendations to local districts. Of the states, 16 acted this year. It was only on Tuesday that Alaska legislature asked the schools to regulate cell phones if they overwritten an educational package that Republican governor Mike Dunleavy had lodged for reasons.
Further measures take place when the invoices are waiting for the signature or a veto of a governor in Florida, Missouri, Nebraska and New Hampshire.
Increasing focus on the ban on telephones throughout the school day
When Florida acted for the first time, the legislator ordered the schools to ban telephones during the lesson while they allowed them between classes or lunch. But now it is still waiting for an invoice that awaits the governor Ron Desantis’ action, which continues. It would ban telephones for the entire school day for primary and middle schools.
Nine states and the District of Columbia passed the day of school, most of them for students in classes K-12, and they are now bans on lessons across the seven states.
The Republican governor of North Dakota, Kelly Armstrong, called the ban on the entire school day that he signed “a great victory” in the law.
“The teachers wanted it. The parents wanted it. The headmaster wanted it. The school authorities wanted it,” said Armstrong.
Armstrong recently attended a primary school with such a ban. He said he saw children who deal with each other and laugh over tables during lunch.
The prohibitions of “Bell-to-Bell” were partly of Excelined, which by Jeb Bush, GOV. Governor Florida founded educated education stank, funded. The group’s political partner was busy in lobbying for bans.
Nathan Hoffman, Excelined’s Senior Director of State Policy and Advocacy, said the cell phones during the day have problems outside of class, for example when the students set up or record battles in halls.
“This is often when you get some of your biggest behavioral problems, whether you will become viral or not,” said Hoffman.
Other states want school districts to determine their own rules
But other states, especially in which there are robust traditions in local school control, only demand that school districts apply a kind of mobile phone directive. The assumption that districts take on the hint and severely restrict access to the phone. In Maine, where some legislators originally proposed a ban on the school day, the legislators are now considering a rewritten bill that would only require a directive.
And there were some countries in which the legislature did not act at all. Perhaps the most dramatic was in Wyoming, where the senators voted in January. Some opponents said teachers or parents should define the rules.
Where political decision -makers have progressed, there is a growing consensus about exceptions. In most states, students can operate electronic devices to monitor medical needs and to meet the conditions of their special education plans. Some allow exceptions to translation devices if English is not the first language of a student or if a teacher wants the students to operate devices for class work.
There are also some unusual exceptions. South Carolina’s original policy enabled an exception for students who are volunteer firefighters. The fresh law of West Virginia allows smartwatches as long as they are not used for communication.
Some parents and students reject the rules
However, the most renowned exception was to operate mobile phones in emergencies. One of the most common objections about parents against a ban is that you cannot contact your child in a crisis like shooting at school.
“Only through text messages did the parents know what happened,” said Tinya Brown, whose daughter is a newcomer to the Apalachee High School northeast of Atlanta, where two students and two teachers were killed in September. She spoke against Georgia’s law at a press conference in March.
Some laws require schools to find other opportunities for parents to communicate with their children at schools, but most legislators say that they support the students access to their cell phones, at least according to the immediate danger, during an emergency, access to their mobile phones.
In some states, the students have testified for regulations, but it is also clear that many students, especially in high schools, draw according to the rules. Kaytlin Villescas, a second year at the Prairieville High School, in the suburbs of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a student who took advantage of the fight against bans. He started a petition and announced Wbrz-TV in August that the Louisiana law was abused. She argued that schools should instead teach responsible operate.
“It is our proposal that schools instead of completely prohibiting the use of mobile phones convey guidelines for responsible use and thus build up a culture of respect and self-regulation,” wrote Villescas in an online petition.
Most states do not offer financing for the execution of laws
Some states have made money available for districts to buy lockable telephone storage bags or other storage solutions. For example, New York plans to spend 13.5 million US dollars. However, the states generally did not provide any money. The legislators of New Hampshire stripped a proposed 1 million US dollar from their bill.
“The provision of specific money would make some of these implementation challenges easier,” said Hoffman. “That means most states don’t have it.”
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Associated Press Reporter Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota; And Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, contributed.
