Senate Bill 139 would require district policies to include exceptions for emergency situations and student medical monitoring. It would also create a grant fund with a $2 million cap to get schools the supplies needed for securing phones.
Seifried said in her conversations with school districts, administrators say they are hesitant to take on the community backlash that could come from banning phones. They ask lawmakers to step in. A statewide law, she said, also gives students across the state an equal shot at learning in a less distracted environment.
“I am supportive of a statewide option so that it’s consistent across [Oklahoma], because if it helps a kid in Western Oklahoma, it’s going to help a kid in Eastern Oklahoma,” Seifried said. “And I want them to have the same learning environments.”
Seifried is the vice chair of the Senate Education Committee, where the bill will need to overcome its first legislative hurdle.
She and Senate Education Committee Chair Adam Pugh (R-Edmond) authored bills last session, Senate Bill 1321 and Senate Bill 1314 respectively, on the issue of phone bans.
Seifried’s bill would have created a three-year pilot program to study nine volunteer schools. It passed the education committee but was never heard in the appropriations committee.
Pugh’s bill began as an incentive program for schools to opt-in to a phone-free campus policy. It passed through the education committee, but members wanted the bill rewritten to eliminate the incentive and instead mandate all school districts go phone-free. That version passed through the appropriations committee but was not heard on the Senate floor.
This fall, the House and Senate also held multi-day legislative interim studies on the merits of a statewide school cell phone restriction policy. Seifried said she believes there is enough momentum this year to get a policy passed.
“Every legislator that I’ve talked to have said, ‘Wow, I really see this issue,’ or ‘My people see the need to remove cell phones from the classroom,’” Seifried said. “So I would just say locally, it’s grown, and then also nationally, it’s grown.”
Cell phone bans have been gaining steam around the state. More than a decade ago, Warner Public Schools instituted a cell phone ban and has consistently earned A’s and B’s on the state report card ever since. Tulsa Public Schools, Bixby Public Schools and Union Public Schools have all introduced or reinforced existing policies within the last year.
Nationally, about 76% of public schools prohibit cell phone use. Eight states have banned cell phones at schools through legislation, 11 have introduced legislation to ban cell phones and 10 states’ education departments have issued policy recommendations or pilot programs to ban phones. That’s according to an analysis from the nonprofit health policy research organization, KFF.
Seifried said the motivation for the bill is two-fold: to eliminate the headache of classroom distractions for teachers and limit students’ exposure to damaging material online.
“On the one hand, I’m trying to support teachers so they can focus on what they originally signed up for — they want to educate kids,” Seifried said. “And… I just want to give kids the ability and the environment to learn and grow and focus on schoolwork and other social skills, and try to remove the bullying as much as possible.”
This year’s legislative session begins Feb. 3.
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