🔒CT school cellphone ban passes House with bipartisan support

A bill that would impose a statewide bell-to-bell cellphone ban in public schools cleared the state House of Representatives Monday by a vote of 117-31. Twenty Republicans joined most Democrats in passing House Bill 5035, which prohibits students across Connecticut from using cellphones on school grounds during the school day. What exactly students do with those phones — whether they keep them in backpacks, for example, or store them in locked pouches — would remain a question for individual districts. The bill makes exceptions for students with specialized learning plans, such as IEPs and 504 plans. The ban has been a priority this year for both legislative Democrats and Gov. Ned Lamont, who raised the issue at his State of the State address in February. Proponents say phones, and especially the social media apps they run, are distracting, addictive and ripe for abuse. Many draw inspiration from Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book “The Anxious Generation,” which connects phone use with a devastating rise in youth mental health disorders. “These devices, while at times a useful piece of technology, have actually become an addiction for our young people, and they are becoming increasingly disruptive in the school day,” said Education Committee co-Chair Rep. Jennifer Leeper, D-Fairfield, who presented the bill to her colleagues and answered their questions in the House Monday. Leeper also expressed concern that smartphones have taken up time children would otherwise be spending building relationships with peers and trusted adults. Opponents of H.B. 5035 generally agreed with Leeper’s sentiment. However, many argued school boards, not the state government, should be regulating the issue — as they are already. “This bill is not filling a void where there is no policy. This bill is affirmatively overriding local policy which has already been established,” said Rep. Tina Courpas, R-Greenwich. Under current law, schools in Connecticut are required to adopt cellphone policies in line with guidance from the state Department of Education. That guidance suggests various limitations to phone use, but it stops far short of a bell-to-bell ban. Consequently, many districts still allow phone use at lunch, between classes and for instructional purposes. Opponents of H.B. 5035 say districts should be allowed to continue those policies. The state’s teachers unions disagree. They say policing cellphone use is taking up more and more class time and creating friction between teachers and students, and that a statewide ban would help settle the issue once and for all. Leeper concurred. “We got lots of testimony in support for having one statewide policy … because there’s no evidence that phones in the school day are good for our kids,” Leeper said. Education Committee Ranking Member Rep. Lezlye Zupkus, R-Prospect, was not convinced. She pointed to public testimony from a superintendent who said his district was already struggling to enforce its more lenient cellphone policy. “The concern has always been, and still is, that teachers are gonna have to enforce this. So what is the practice going to be if some kid doesn’t abide by [the ban]?” Zupkus said. Leeper replied that a bell-to-bell ban is easier to enforce because it takes effect at the start of the day and doesn’t need to be constantly reimposed at the beginning of each class. “That takes a lot of enforcement off the backs of our teachers, so that it’s one point in time [that students are told to put phones away],” Leeper said. “If they are in violation of the policy, quite likely, the phone’s then removed.” Zupkus also criticized the bill for banning cellphones only for kids, not adults. “Teachers, administrators can walk around with their cellphones, but students can’t, and that is, to me, not good role modeling at all,” Zupkus said. Several other Republicans offered a similar argument. One, Rep. Gale Mastrofrancesco of Wolcott, even proposed a floor amendment extending the bell-to-bell cellphone ban to teachers and administrators. “If we are going to institute this, and this is going to pass — which I don’t agree with — I think we need to set an example [for students],” Mastrofrancesco said. Leeper said the existing bill had not addressed teacher phone use so as not to interfere with school safety plans. Many such plans involve teachers using cellphones to call 911 or an administrator in an emergency. She urged her colleagues to vote against the amendment, which failed by a vote of 24-123. Rep. Amy Romano, R-Shelton, has been in favor of H.B. 5035 since it came up in the Education Committee. She reiterated her support on the House floor Monday. “What these cellphones are doing — to me, it’s like a drug,” Romano said. She also expressed concern that students use their phones to deal drugs and take photos of peers in locker rooms and bathrooms. Rep. Liz Linehan, D-Cheshire, was one of the few Democrats to vote against the bill. She said she would prefer Connecticut take an approach similar to that of Los Angeles, which has different restrictions for students depending on grade level. “I would rather teach these kids at an earlier age, when is the proper time to use these devices, how do we use them, when can we put them away, how to control ourselves, our brains and our bodies,” Linehan said. She explained further in a text message later, “I’d rather start early with limited screens and more traditional hands on and book learning, and slowly introduce screens … Pair that with curriculum teaching self regulation, and that’s the winning strategy.” H.B. 5035 now goes to the Senate, where it must pass by May 6 in order to become law.