Arizona Secretary of Education Tom Horne held a press conference on August 22 to announce the revisions to the bill to ban student cell phone use in classrooms across the state. The bill is similar to House Bill 2793, which was vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs in the last session.
HB2793 was sponsored by Republican Representative Beverly Pingerelli of the 28th District. The bill restricts students’ access to social media platforms on the school internet and limits the use of personal and school-provided wireless communication devices outside of class. This restriction extends beyond class time to include lunch and recess.
“(Cell phone use) has become the heroin of our time and we really need to do something about it,” Horne said.
Mitchell Rutherford is a former Tucson public school teacher who said he left the classroom in part because of his students’ cell phone addiction.
“Face-to-face collaborative learning is one of the oldest activities. People have been learning together in groups since before the invention of language,” Rutherford said. “But when you talk to someone on your phone, you’re not talking face-to-face. That personal contact is so critical to development.”
In the upcoming legislative session, Horne said he will once again push for making cell phones inaccessible to students throughout the school day. The bill seeks to circumvent existing Arizona laws that give local educational organizations the power to set rules for cell phone use. School districts such as Litchfield Elementary School District have already enacted policies requiring students to turn off their cell phones and leave them in their backpacks.
In the committee meetings where the original bill was discussed, representatives from all parties agreed that student distraction by cell phones was a problem and that there was no solution.
“We already have laws on the books, we already know that teachers have to enforce them and they’re the bad guys,” said Democratic Rep. Judy Schwiebert. “I think we all agree that cell phones are a problem, but I don’t know if passing a new rule is going to solve the problem.”
The bill passed in the House and Senate with only Republican votes. All Democrats voted against it except one Democrat who abstained.
