What S.C. school cellphone ban be like in many districts

WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Cellphones will soon be banned, in some capacity, in classrooms across South Carolina.

But the details of what it could look like are now being worked out by education leaders.

In the current state budget, lawmakers included a temporary law, called a proviso, that instructs school districts to implement a rule that prohibits the use of personal electronic communication devices, including cellphones, by students during direct classroom instructional time. Districts that fail to comply could put their state funding at risk.

The State Board of Education is in the process of approving a model policy that districts can opt to implement as their local policy; if they choose to stray from the model policy, the South Carolina Department of Education said it cannot be any less strict than the state’s.

“It sets the floor and not the ceiling,” Deputy State Superintendent Matthew Ferguson said during a meeting Tuesday morning of the State Board of Education’s Policy & Legislative Committee. “And so it is what is consistent across the state — each district is going to be able to build upon that and add its local nuance and flavor.”

The Department of Education has crafted a policy for the State Board to consider, which the board gave an initial approval Tuesday.

It would prohibit students from accessing devices, including cellphones, smart watches, tablets, and gaming devices, during the school day, unless the district superintendent approves their use.

Exceptions would be allowed for students with IEPs and medical plans if the device is needed for medical or educational purposes, as well as for students who serve as volunteer firefighters or in other emergency organizations, with permission from their district superintendent.

Students would have to keep their phones and other devices in their lockers, backpacks, or wherever the district decides they should be kept, and they would be able to outright prohibit students from bringing them on campus at all.

Districts would still have some discretion over whether this applies to time spent on school buses, field trips, and athletic events.

This summer, the Department of Education conducted a survey of more than 9,000 South Carolina K-12 public school teachers that indicated strong for some type of classroom cellphone restriction.

“What teachers told us overwhelmingly was that cellphones during the day are limiting their ability to teach. It is causing distractions and classroom management concerns,” Ferguson said.

However, some believe the potential disciplinary penalties students could face for violating their district’s policy, like suspensions, could have unintended consequences.

“If the intent of this policy is to help our students be more engaged with learning, removing them from the classroom is not going to assist with that,” Jennifer Rainville, education policy attorney for SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center, said.

Board expressed overall for this policy, and they could have potentially approved it as early as Tuesday afternoon.

But during a Tuesday morning committee meeting, they decided to pump the brakes to work out some details at their next meeting in September, deciding to give it only an initial approval this month.

“As a superintendent, it is definitely needed to have something to try to help children cease from their cellphone addiction,” State Board Chair David O’Shields said. “I relate it to the analogy of runny eggs: I don’t like my eggs runny. I just want it to be good. I want it to be done, and I want it to be done well.”

O’Shields, who also serves as the superintendent in Laurens County School District 56, said that still puts them on track to fulfill the department’s goal of statewide implementation by January, giving local school boards time during the fall to decide what rule they want to enact.

However, some districts may have already put their own policies in place before then.

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