On July 1, 2024, Governor Eric Holcomb enacted a new law regarding cell phones that affects public school students in Indiana. All public schools across Indiana will now have to comply with this new policy that affects the usage of “portable wireless devices,” including cell phones, during classroom instructional time. The Bagpiper believes that the cell phone policy can help students stay on task if it is properly enforced by staff members.
Senate Bill 185 states, “Each school corporation or charter school shall adopt and implement a wireless communication device policy.” The bill allows teachers in the classroom to provide cell phone guidelines that students have to follow. At FC, many teachers have expressed their concerns about the new policy, but as English teacher Karen Mayer-Sebastian believes, the key to students’ education is that every teacher enforces the new protocol to ensure students’ success.
The different cell phone standards each teacher applies to their classroom may lead to differences in students’ levels of focus. Teachers should all enforce the same rule about phones in their class, but it is up to the students if they want to obey it or not and prioritize their education. Although, there can be downsides to this new guideline, students who put time into their academics and learning would likely will not see much change, since some students were not utilizing their phones during class time even before this law was in place. The students who oppose the bill, are the ones it was likely made for. This law only impacts the students who were consistently distracted by their phones during class time. Therefore, requiring teachers to reinforce the law would hopefully create a significant positive impact on academic achievements.
One popular belief is that by having this new phone policy, the government is overstepping into the classroom setting more than it should and that teachers deserve more control over how they decide to run their classrooms. Contrary to this belief, teachers do have the control and choice as to how they choose to enforce this policy. For example, some may say that phones are to be away for the entirety of the class period, while others allow students to check them only after their instructional time or lecture is over.
Ultimately, this cell phone policy was created with the student body’s best interest at heart. As a staff, we believe that this can create a positive change in the classroom environment and increase student learning, but only if both students and teachers do their part in enforcing and upholding this law.