NC House bill prohibits cell phone use in public schools

RAMI AL-ZAYAT | UNSPLASH

A bill introduced in the North Carolina House of Representatives would ban student cell phone use in public school classrooms.

A bill introduced in the North Carolina House of Representatives would prohibit students from using cell phones during instructional time. 

Educators agree that cell phones can be a distraction in the classroom, but others say phones can be used for education purposes, too. North Carolina has a law that allows school districts to determine their own cell phone policies; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools already bans them. 

Jerry Wilson, policy director at the Center for Racial Equity in Education, is concerned about the implications of a student potentially breaking the law by having a phone during class time.

“Students who are multilingual might use cell phones for instructional purposes, like language translation apps and things of that nature,” he said. “And the research shows that Black students are often punished more frequently and more harshly for the same infractions than their counterparts, and so if we’re creating another infraction that would be disproportionately enforced, that is certain concerning.”

Wilson is a former social studies teacher from Charlotte. 

CMS spokesman Charles Jeter told The Post the school district has no position on the bill. Students would have access to their phones outside of instructional times under the bill, which could curb concerns about student safety and communication with family members outside of school. 

“It’s more of a Band-Aid on increasing student engagement in and performance in schools without tackling some of the core issues that need to be addressed,” said Diontre Davis, a CREED policy intern who is pursuing a master’s degree in public policy at Duke University. 

Wilson and Davis say that other issues, like a statewide teacher shortage, would be better strategies at increasing student engagement and performance in North Carolina’s public schools, than banning cell phones.

“There’s a huge teacher shortage because educators are not being compensated fairly,” Wilson said. “Rather than put more funding into our public schools, lawmakers are expanding private school vouchers.”

Wilson is also concern about lawmakers drafting legislation that would “restrict the breadth of resources that students have available to them in the classroom,” like “anti-Critical Race Theory” laws.

“If lawmakers are saying on the one hand, we don't want students to connect to the material that they're learning in school; we don't even want to allow certain representative material into the classroom, how can they come back on the other hand and say, ‘well, the problem is cell phones?’” he said.

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