California schools are set to receive smartphone ban rules to be put in place by the school districts as per a new law that was found in the sack of the Governor Gavin Newsom that was signed last week.
This law is targeted as tackling the challenge of increasing distractions within the learning field as well as protecting the effects caused to the students’ brains in terms of mental illnesses caused by social media. Similar laws have already been reported effective in other states which include Florida and Indiana, states ap news agency.
Governor Newsom emphasized the importance of the law saying, “This new law will help students focus on academics and social development and the world around them and not the screens in school”.
Despite these provisions, the law has received backlash, with some saying that those who are constitutionally mandated to apply the policy do not need to be teachers and that it may restrict students from reacting in case a situation that calls for an emergency arises. Troy Flint of California School Board Association expressed worry about the provision saying he backs up districts that opt to control phone usage after evaluating the needs of the community.
The law stipulates that, starting by July 1, 2026 all the districts shall have policies regulating student use of mobile phones and these policies should be reviewed after every five years. This is due to a statute passed in 2019 which allowed districts to impose restrictions on the use of smartphones by students. More recently these seasonable demands picked up steam after the chorus from the US surgeon general’s office encouraging Congress to alert the public regarding the dangers of social media for children.
Some of the school districts such as Los Angeles Unified have taken a step already to pass a resolution to restrain the students from using phones during classes starting in January 2024. Assemblymember Josh Hoover who presented the proposal for this particular bill observed that even though the students might want to defy the instructions on restriction of phone usage, these policies are for the better good.
Aspiring this many parents did not envision leaving their children to school without a means of communication in case an emergency arises and they at no point would have access to their children beyond that time. But the statute even has provisions for such extreme cases. Supporters argue that in an active shooter, silencing phones should work by reducing indicators suggesting the presence of students in the premises by having phone detectors ringing.
Santa Barbara Unified schools increased student attention upon an implementation of mobile phones usage ban policy. As principal Tarik McFall said, during a lock down, contact with parents was not a concern since those bans transformed the school’s culture, shifting focus towards interaction between students.
Notwithstanding this, there are still challenges. Teachers such as Mara Harvey from Discovery High School in Sacramento, for example, offer the fact that Smartphones are oftenused as supplementary devices for students, when their Chromebooks – used for online learning – are missing.
While California schools are gearing up towards the implementation of these changes, managing changing technology and keeping it out of the way on use in a classroom setting will still be a key area related to such changes.
