Dallas Downey, a Hopkins High School 12th-grader, student council member, theater actor and president of the Hopkins Black Student Alliance, said fighting boredom is one of the many reasons to own a cellphone. He works at the Legal Rights Center, educating young people about their rights when dealing with police. Like other students, he has to do things after school, he said, and feels obligated to respond during school hours to the latest rumors or reports that might appear on the Hopkins Parents Facebook page.

“Of course we’re there to learn, but sometimes there are breaks in class,” Downey said. “I focus on what I need to do. Self-regulation is important and I can regulate myself.”

Austin students who responded to a school district survey showed little interest in banning cell phones: Only 10 percent said the devices should not be allowed in class, compared to 51 percent of parents and 81 percent of staff.

This year’s legislation requiring Minnesota districts to establish cellphone policies also asked the state’s elementary and secondary school principals’ associations to provide a set of best practices to guide them. The resulting “toolkit,” which will be in the hands of more than 2,200 school principals by the end of July, proposes that all classrooms should be phone-free, with few exceptions.

“I think every school has a policy or guidelines on cell phones,” said Bob Driver, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals. “We’re trying to create consistency across the state.”

Anna Tierney, a mother of two daughters in Bloomington Public Schools, spoke at a recent panel on cell phones in schools. She said school districts need to keep in mind that “younger children in elementary and middle schools have different developmental needs than high school students.”