The members of the North Carolina House of Representatives overwhelmingly support House bill 87, or the Cell Phone-Free Education bill. As it stands, the bill would require all K-12 public schools in North Carolina to adopt a policy eliminating or severely limiting student access to cell phones in the classroom.
House members voted 114-3 in favor of the bill March 25. This bill could make North Carolina the 16th state to ban or restrict cell phone use in classrooms.
Rep. Stephen Ross and Rep. Dennis Riddell, Republicans from District 63 and 64 in Alamance County, voted in favor of House bill 87. Ross said the widespread support comes from feedback shared by each representative’s local school district.
“Most members when they go back home to their districts, they visit schools,” Ross said. “We actually have some teachers in the General Assembly, and they all have heard the same thing. It’s a huge distraction.”
Ross said his own support comes from conversations with teachers in the Alamance Burlington School System who have seen the impact of cell phone usage on their own students and classroom.
“I visit a lot of schools, talk with a lot of teachers, and I hear almost unanimously from educators that they are a distraction in the classroom,” Ross said. “They're trying to teach a class, and kids are sitting in the classroom texting and all the other things that they do on cell phones, and so they're not paying attention.”
ABSS already has a policy in place regarding cell phones in the classroom. ABSS Board Policy 4813 states the administrators and teachers determine when cell phones may be used in the classroom under supervision. ABSS board chair Sandy Ellington-Graves voiced her support for House bill 87 and said ABSS leaves it to schools to mandate their own restrictions.
“We do have a policy in place that allows our administrators and our schools to kind of determine how best that policy fits into their school campus,” Ellington-Graves said. “I know there’s a lot of push at the state level, both in the House and the Senate, to come to a cell phone-free classroom, and that’s something I would certainly get behind.”
The bill itself does not specify how each school must implement its own policy. Ellington-Graves said it should be up to each district across the state as to what implementation would look like and should also include parental input.
“I think it’s a part of figuring out what we as a district can do to comply with the wishes of our state leaders, but also partner with our parents and our families to figure out what it looks like in our district,” Ellington-Graves said. “We can work together so that we can reach a compromise so that we have uninterrupted, undistracted classroom time, yet they have their phones when they need them.”
Elon professor of exercise science Eric Hall is a parent to two Elon Elementary students and was recently elected to the ABSS board. Hall said he understands the need for this bill because of his own experience dealing with cell phone usage in college classrooms.
“I’ve seen in my own class when people are distracted by computers and phones, how is it possible that they can then be successful in the classroom and be paying attention,” Hall said.
Students as young as elementary school age could be impacted by this bill since it applies to every public school student regardless of grade level. A 2022 study by Stanford Medicine shows that 75% of kids own a cell phone by 12 years old. Between 2008 and 2023, the percentage of teens ages 13 to 17 who own a cell phone has increased from 71% to about 95%, according to The Pew Research Center.
When it comes to cell phone usage for teenagers, the impacts extend beyond the classroom. Elon professor of psychology Bilal Ghandour said an addiction to a phone can impede and harm relationships.
“Unlike thinking about alcohol or cigarettes or other drugs where it’s pretty clear the negatives, people use it to calm their nerves or feel good, but we know that they’re harmful,” Ghandour said. “With technology, there’s so much advantage that it’s only little by little do you realize that you have lost a grip on your time. You find that your relationships have been transformed and they’re not as meaningful or intense.”
Hall witnessed this impact first hand while leading students on a Winter Term trip to Australia. During previous years, Hall said he used to see students chatting about their days and their next activities on the bus rides. Now, those rides are much quieter.
“It was great, because there was just a lot of engagement on the bus as far as talking about what we did,” Hall said. “Then you can sort of tell, as cell phones became more popular, and especially with international plans, those conversations sort of went away and people were just on their phone a lot more than what had previously happened.”
Ghandour said the rise in cell phone usage has coincided with a rise in depression and anxiety rates amongst teens. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control found in a 2023 survey that depressive symptoms in high school students rose from 28% in 2011 to 40% in 2023.
House bill 87 is currently in the North Carolina Senate waiting to pass its second and third reading. If the bill passes, it will go into effect during the 2025-2026 school year. The current legislative session will end July 31.