Bill to curb cell phones in schools sees changes on emergency, health concerns
The Assembly Education Committee moved a bill requiring school districts to adopt an in-school cell phone policy, but not before amending it in an attempt to ease concerns over student access for emergencies or health matters.
“We are not working to ‘ban’ cell phones from schools but looking at how the use of cell phones can be modified,” Assemblywoman Rosy Bagolie, a Democrat from Livingston and co-sponsor, told her colleagues at the hearing in Trenton on March 10. “We want to bring students back to learning.”
Advocates of A-4882 testified that the changes would provide the state’s almost 600 school districts with greater flexibility to create policy rather than adhere to strict new rules, especially around the phones’ removal from classrooms.
“With the amended version of this bill we can be even more supportive,” said Jonathan Pushman, a lobbyist for the New Jersey School Boards Association. “This bill now strikes an appropriate balance to ensure there are policies but to allow flexibility to be responsive to what each district needs.”
Olga Polites, the state chapter leader of NJ Media Literacy Now, said the more flexible approach was crucial to encouraging widespread adoption of cell phone policies. “We know cell phones have become a distraction in the classroom,” she said. “What this bill does is allow school districts to allow policies that work for them.”
Governor Phil Murphy set aside $3 million in the budget he presented three weeks ago to incentivize the drafting of such bans by school districts. That money could be spent on solutions including lockable storage pouches.
But at a cost of $25 per student, such devices would mean a more than $33 million bill for the state’s 2,500 public schools, according to Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia, a Republican from Franklin Borough. New Jersey has 1.4 million students enrolled in K-12 schools.
“Restrictions on cell phones is just good policy,” Fantasia said. And giving school districts options beyond buying lockable pouches will enable them to adopt policies without increasing education costs, she said.
Assemblyman Avi Schnall, a Lakewood Democrat, said the amendments ensuring local control make him feel more comfortable supporting the bill.
“We must address the cell phone problem in schools. Fact. Period,” he said. “What the policy is should be left to the local school board and this bill strikes that perfect balance.”
The legislation, approved by the Senate in January, now moves to the Assembly for a floor vote. It must then return to the Senate for concurrence on the amendments before moving to the governor’s desk.
