Last year, Senate Bill 139 from Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, required local school boards to adopt a policy prohibiting students from cell phone and personal device use on campus during the school day. In that bill, districts were allowed to choose whether to continue the ban.
Now, a recently amended House Bill 1276 by Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, would instead make the ban permanent. The bill was filed for the 2025 session as a mirror bill to SB139. It advanced out of the House and through the Senate Education Committee, keeping it alive as a vehicle for the 2026 amendment.
“This comes at the request of hundreds and hundreds of parents across the state of Oklahoma, many, many, many teachers [and] our school districts,” Seifried said.
Sen. Spencer Kern, R-Duncan, said last year he voted against the ban at the request of his superintendent constituents.
“Many of those same superintendents reached out to me this year and they were very thankful we [passed the bill],” Kern said. “I got to see it firsthand at lunch that children were playing with each other, playing cards. They were talking to each other. They were engaging. They weren’t walking with their heads down in the halls.”
The bill now heads to the House.
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