South Carolina parent and teacher Patrick Kelly was at a professional development talk some summers ago when the topic of students using cellphones in school came up.
"The presenter just point blank told a room full of teachers, he's like, 'Give up. You'll never be more entertaining than YouTube,'" Kelly, the director of governmental affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association, told SC Public Radio by phone Tuesday. "And he's right. You can't beat TikTok or YouTube ... because they're deliberately designed to hold the attention of the user."
Post COVID, students' cellphone use in class has become a big problem for teachers.
And teachers, Kelly said, are pretty fed up with it.
A May survey sent to teachers by the state Department of Education found 83% of teachers said phones distract students every day in their classrooms. Ninety-two percent of teachers said they could support a state policy limiting cellphone use, and 55% said they could back a complete ban on cellphones during the school day.
In September, the State Board of Education will adopt a statewide model policy that'll spell out minimum requirements local school districts must have to ban student cellphone use during school, with spelled out disciplinary consequences.
Several other states have either passed or are proposing outright bans.
The model policy is backed by a new S.C. law included in the budget, which states that:
"To receive state funds allocated for State Aid to Classrooms, a school district shall
implement a policy adopted by the State Board of Education that prohibits access to
personal electronic communication devices by students during the school day. For
purposes of this provision, a personal electronic communication device is considered to
be a device not authorized for classroom use by a student, utilized to access the Internet,
wi-fi, or cellular telephone signals."
It's unclear how many school districts in South Carolina already have a phone ban policy.
Kelly said it's likely many districts have rules. But the policy and the law, he said, does more than give guidance to school boards and district superintendents. It further expands a ban on cellphone use for kindergarten through high school for the entire school day — a ban most schools don't have.
The model policy states, "Any previous device or cellphone policies in conflict with this policy are superseded by this model policy."
"This is a prohibition on access from the moment the tardy bell starts for the first class until dismissal of instruction at the end of the day," Kelly said.
The model policy states students must put their phones, and any accompanying accessories, like headphones, in lockers, backpacks or somewhere else the district requires during the school day. Districts can also ban phones on school property, the policy states.
It will be up to districts to decide how to enforce the rules and discipline students.
The policy says there can be exceptions. Those exceptions include phone use requirements in a student's IEP, medical or 504 plan, or if the student is a member of a first responder or emergency organization and the superintendent OKs it.
School districts have up until January to enact and enforce new phone rules.
The state education department will allow districts to use certain available money to buy cellphone pouches.
But school boards are still waiting on the State Board of Education to outline specifically what the minimum requirements will be.
On Tuesday, members delayed a vote on the drafted policy until next month so to allow more time to work out some details. That gives boards, which will be tasked with figuring out how to discipline students, around two full months to adopt a policy.
"I think districts have been prepping, but they still need final direction from the state board, because it's a waste of a local board's time to start developing a policy and then find out they missed something they needed to pick up from the state board," Kelly said.
David O’Shields, a Laurens County schools superintendent and state board chair, said Tuesday that a short delay will give teachers, parents and school staff more time to perfect the policy.
“Let's get these eggs right," O’Shields said. "I want a good omelet."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
