Editorial Commentary by Dana Hess, South Dakota Searchlight
It’s like something out of one of those old Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland musicals: “Hey gang, my dad’s got a barn! Let’s put on a show!”
Instead of putting on a show, the state’s Department of Education and some legislators are eager to follow in the footsteps of several school districts that have banned students from having cellphones in school.
“Hey gang, this sounds like a great idea! Let’s make it a rule for everybody!”
The fact that the department and lawmakers are even talking about taking action on a cellphone ban for students underscores the myth of local control.
Supposedly, each local school board is in charge of making its own rules and regulations. That’s true until some hot idea sweeps the Capitol, causing lawmakers and policymakers to hype each other into a frenzy and start making rules that apply to everyone, or in this case, every school district.
What got the buzz going in legislative circles is the decision in some South Dakota school districts to prohibit students from using cellphones during the school day. Gettysburg, Kimball and Platte-Geddes are among the schools that have implemented this policy.
Students’ phones will be placed in pouches that need to be opened with a magnetic key. In some cases, phones will remain available to students who need an app to monitor a medical condition.
Schools are implementing this policy because, in many cases, students are too connected to social media. Administrators want their lunchrooms to be filled with student conversations, not just the sounds of chewing and tapping. (It’s easy enough to consider someone else giving up their cellphone while you, ahem, read this column on your phone.)
There have been some questions raised about whether this is the right way to get students to use their phones responsibly. With the phone locked in a bag, can they be responsible to an employer who needs to tell them about a schedule change? Can they be responsible to a parent who needs them to pick up younger siblings after school? Is hiding away their phones really the right way to teach them how to use social media responsibly?
These questions aren’t stopping conversations from taking place about how to implement these kinds of policies in other schools. Conversations like that taking place at the legislative level means that someone will probably come up with a one-size-fits-all bill that forces this kind of policy on school districts, whether they want it or not.
According to a story in The Dakota Scout, there has been talk about the school cellphone bans among members of the summer study committee on Artificial Intelligence and Regulation of Internet Access by Minors. According to Rep. Will Mortenson, a Pierre Republican, “How to bring this about while respecting local control is the part we’re working through.”
Yet, here’s the rub: how lawmakers can inflict their will on school districts while maintaining the myth of local control.
Lawmakers love local control until they want to be the ones in control. School districts learned that lesson the hard way in the last legislative session when lawmakers decided the state’s school districts needed to implement a $45,000 minimum salary for teachers. Lawmakers mandated the salary, but failed to provide any extra funding for the 37 school districts that didn’t yet meet the salary minimum.
While some school districts are scrambling to find the funding to pay their teachers the legislatively enforced minimum salary, others will be looking for money to get them started on their own school-wide cellphone ban. According to The Dakota Scout, the Gettysburg School district needed about $4,000 to start the program.
Maybe the school cellphone ban is a good idea. It certainly has generated some interest from educators and lawmakers. But just because it’s popular doesn’t mean that it has to be the law in every school district.
Lawmakers should fight their baser instinct to try to make everything right by passing a new law. Instead of mandating the school cellphone ban, they could consider funding it: Leave the decision about banning cellphones up to each school district, but start a fund those schools can tap to cover their costs. That would give a leg up to what may be a good idea for some schools while allowing school boards to go on believing that they are in control.
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence.
