JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri lawmakers want students to put away their phones while in the classroom.
The ultimate goal is to decrease student distraction by putting down the phone while at school. Representatives sponsoring the legislation said schools would have a say in crafting their own cell phone policy but would require that policy to restrict students using their phones during instructional time.
“The purpose behind these bills is to just try to get our classrooms back to being classrooms,” Rep. Kathy Steinhoff, D-Columbia, said.
The bipartisan legislation is being sponsored by Steinhoff and Republican Rep. Jamie Gragg, R-Ozark. The two said this creates a positive outcome for students and teachers.
“The teachers that I’ve talked to have enforced a policy of some sort in their classrooms and have seen homework scores skyrocket; they’ve seen test scores skyrocket; they’ve seen attention spans increase exponentially,” Gragg said. “The cell phone is the new yawn; if I were to step outside this committee and go over to the café, if I pulled my cell phone out, two or three other people will pull theirs out as well.”
Steinhoff, a retired teacher, says a cell phone-free environment has a positive outcome for students.
“As somebody that was leading a classroom just two years ago, I can attest to the fact that some of our students really are almost addicted to their cell phones,” Steinhoff said.
The legislation allows school districts to make the policy that fits them the best.
“How they are going to do it is up to them, but they will implement a policy where there will not be use of cell phones during instructional time,” Rep. Ed Lewis, R-Moberly, said. “This is probably one of the biggest influxes of unsafety, if you will, coming into our school, and we’re trying to say to avoid some of these problems, school districts, you must do this.”
School administrators from Cape Girardeau told the House education committee Wednesday they established a zero-tolerance policy for cell phones in their high school last year. Since then, there’s been a major culture shift.
“Even the students, they weren’t keen on it at first, but within the week they were like, OK, we see why; we enjoy having these conversations,” assistant superintendent of Cape Girardeau School District James Russell said.
The district’s deputy superintendent, Brice Beck, said student engagement and social interactions are up, and it’s leading to better retention of teachers.
“Salaries are one thing that gets discussed a lot; we can raise salary in my opinion, it’s never going to get where it needs to go fast enough, so we have to find other ways to support teachers,” Beck said.
Eight other states have already initiated some kind of restriction on cell phone use during school, and another dozen have proposed legislation.
The committee did not vote on the bills Wednesday, but could as soon as next week.