NC House panel advances bill restricting K-12 student cell phone use

North Carolina lawmakers are weighing how far schools should go in limiting student cell phone use. A new bill moving through the state House would require school districts to set policies on phones during class but stops short of a full ban. Some advocates want stricter “bell-to-bell” restrictions, arguing phones disrupt learning and fuel cyberbullying. Others worry about limiting communication and tech-based learning. With school districts already setting their own rules, the debate now shifts to whether statewide action is needed—or if local control should prevail.

This is one of the few bi-partisan issues state legislatures are tackling across the country, and this story from North Carolina could just as easily read “North Dakota”; the identified need, the arguments, and even the solution North Carolina are trending toward are the same. We keep sharing this thread because when we’re all taking about the same thing, there’s a good chance it’s important. Learning environments require focus, and cell phones, and particularly the apps that we put on them, are designed — literally — to steal our focus and keep our attention. This conflict needs to be addressed, but who should tackle the problem?

Are local jurisdictions the best equipped? Is this subject matter that requires some over-arching guidance from the state? The list of questions we can generate is long, perhaps the most important one — do we have time to wait or is the pace of the blinking warning light speeding up?