The word “cellphone” has been kicked around the Indiana Statehouse for a few years now but the word itself is debatable.
The cellphone was originally just that – a cellular telephone used to make telephone calls.
These days, cellphones are used for a variety of reasons and making phone calls is probably one of the least functions utilized. They are texting devices, calculators, maps, calendars, TVs, radios, notebooks, cameras, history books, dictionaries, and a portal into the internet.
They’re sometimes annoying and sometimes useful. We complain of being tied down by our phones, but none of us would dare leave home without it.
A divided Indiana Senate this week passed a bill to tighten school cellphone restrictions and has sent it to the House for consideration.
The proposed legislation would require all public schools to adopt a ban on students using or even possessing a cellphone during the school day and requires that any teacher-directed use of such devices, such as calculating in a math class or looking up information for a report, be done only on school-supplied devices.
It also mandates that school corporations choose between two enforcement models: a “no device policy” in which students may not bring phones to school at all, or a “secure storage policy” in which students can bring phones but they will be locked up during the school day.
Senate Bill 78 passed by a vote of 28-19. Eight Democrats and 11 Republicans voted against it.
The bill did not address a number of issues. Who would enforce such a law? And what are the consequences? Will students be arrested for violating it? Or maybe teachers will be charged if they’re not observant enough or strict enough?
Who would pay for “school-supplied devices”? Because you’re not just paying for the phones and the WiFi, but for the monthly phone bill. That would be a heck of a family plan!
It would be costly and a logistic nightmare just to enforce a policy of locking all of those phones up during the school day. If the school takes possession of a student’s phone, it would likely be liable for any lost or stolen ones. And that will absolutely happen.
Schools who choose to ban phones from school grounds altogether will likely find a lot of students standing around with no way to get home after their extra-curricular activities or practices. Will they reinstall all of those payphones they took out back in the 1980s?
Finally, there’s the issue of safety. Has there ever been a school shooting incident where we didn’t hear on the news the next day of students who had called 911, or their parents, or someone on the outside? We’ve listened as they’ve given information to authorities who had no other way of knowing what was going on inside. They’ve given the location of fellow students who were injured and in need of assistance.
We’ve also seen news reports of teachers needing to call for help with an unruly student. Their safety should also be a top concern.
Yes, cellphones are annoying and a distraction. Yes, we are all – especially our youth – too dependent on them.
But aren’t there bigger issues that our lawmakers should be focusing on? Is this where we want to spend our all-too-limited tax money? Don’t our teachers and school staff already have enough to worry about?
Under current Indiana law, students are prohibited from using phones during instructional time, but they can use them before and after school, during lunch, and during passing periods.
That sounds like a good policy. Why not do what we can to help schools enforce that law before we throw additional laws at them?
Let school corporations decide if they need to expand their cellphone policies and how they want to do so. Don’t burden them with yet another unfunded mandate that would be nearly impossible to enforce.
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