Arizona Secretary of Education Tom Horne wants to ban cell phones in classrooms and is seeking legislative support to do so.
Horne held a press conference on August 22 to announce the revised bill regarding student cell phone use in classrooms across the state. The bill is similar to House Bill 2793, which was vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs last session.
HB 2793 was sponsored by Beverly Pingerelli, Republican representative of the 28th Congressional District, which includes parts of Peoria and northern Phoenix, as well as Sun City and Sun City West. The bill would have limited students’ access to social media platforms on the school internet and restricted the use of personal and school-provided wireless communication devices outside of class. This restriction goes beyond class time and extends to lunch and recess times.
“(Cell phone use) has become the heroin of our time and we really need to do something about it,” Horne said.
Mitchell Rutherford, a former Tucson public school teacher, said he left the classroom in part because of his students’ cellphone 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 institutions 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 keep them in their backpacks.
In committee meetings where the original bill was discussed, representatives from all parties agreed that student distraction from cell phones was a problem and that a solution was unclear.
“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.
