Jenks High School students walk out of the Jenks Public Schools Math and Science Center on Nov. 13. All public schools in the state must enforce a cellphone ban this year. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY — As Oklahoma students return to school in the coming days, they’ll have backpacks on, pencils and laptops ready, and their cellphones out of sight.
For the next year, state law requires all Oklahoma public schools to ban student use of cellphones and personal electronic devices for the entire school day. The only devices exempt from the new law are ones that are school-issued, medically necessary or needed for emergencies.
Parents, students and educators across the state said they’re optimistic the cellphone ban will help limit distractions and keep classrooms focused on learning. But, they acknowledged the new ban could be a “challenge” to adjust to, especially during lunch and passing periods.
Some students at Classen High School of Advanced Studies at Northeast have gotten used to watching Netflix during their lunch hour or looking at social media during down time, said rising senior Amasha Samaraweera. This year, that won’t be an option.
Some teachers at the Oklahoma City high school already enforced a “phone jail” in their classrooms, but others had a more relaxed policy, said Samaraweera, who leads the Student Leadership Council in Oklahoma City Public Schools.
Oklahoma City is the largest school system in the state that didn’t have a districtwide cellphone restriction until state law changed this year. Several other Oklahoma districts — and 11 other states — had already implemented some version of the policy.
Samaraweera said she hopes the daylong ban will eliminate the temptation of Tik Tok when she has free time in the school day and force her to focus on homework and reading instead. Not all of her peers are happy with the change.
“We grew up with phones all of our lives so having it put away for eight hours a day, it can be a lot,” Samaraweera said. “I think it’s very valid for some students to feel a little bit concerned about this right now. But one big hope that I have for our student body is we’re extremely adaptable. We can change really fast. We can adapt to any sort of situation. So I’m sure that students over the years, over a course of time, they’ll get used to it.”
The district’s general counsel, Tony Childers, said he expects the policy change will be a struggle but a necessary one.
“I think it’ll be a challenge for students, but we also think it’s going to be beneficial for students,” Childers said during a back-to-school news conference Monday. “We think it’ll help us refocus in the classroom, for students to stay focused on what’s important without being too distracted by devices.”
Students already have enough screen time and distractions, even without cellphones during the school day, said Tarrah Ross, who has three children attending Broken Arrow Public Schools.
It wasn’t many years ago, she said, that her district urged families to buy students a cellphone so they could use it as a tool in the classroom. Ross said she’s glad the policy has since swung in the opposite direction.
What’s crucial, she said, is whether the cellphone ban will be applied consistently. One of her children, now a high school senior, complained that enforcement of his school’s cellphone restrictions varied from teacher to teacher.
“He’s like, ‘If everybody has to do it, fine, but if not everybody’s going to do it, then I want to be able to use it, too,’” Ross said.
The statewide ban on cellphones and personal devices won’t change much for Norman Public Schools parent Brent Norwood and his children. His fifth grader and sixth grader already are used to their school requiring cellphones to be put away.
“When we told them about this new policy, they were like, ‘I thought that was already the rule,’” he said.
Norwood said he hopes to see the long-term impact of the statewide policy when today’s middle and high school students arrive at the University of Oklahoma, where he teaches economics. He said he’s seen students become too dependent on personal devices, especially over the past five years.
The statewide cellphone ban won’t apply to colleges and universities, and Norwood doesn’t prohibit devices in his classes, either.
But, he can’t help but notice how often students wear noise-canceling earphones, even when they visit him during his office hours. Spending less time plugged in and more time engaged would be a good thing, he said.
At the K-12 level, he hopes students’ interpersonal skills get a boost with more face-to-face interaction.
“Less dependence on liking someone’s posts and more just going up and socializing at lunchtime, that’s what I’m hoping it does,” Norwood said.
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