Florida school district parents push back against cellphone ban

Since the 2024 school year kicked off in August, Florida’s sixth-largest school district has enforced a total cellphone ban, barring phones during class, lunch, and breaks unless given special permission.

The South Florida school district issued a survey that received responses from more than 70,000 students, teachers, and parents, one in five of whom believed that the cellphone ban was having a negative impact on the students’ well-being. Parents have listed many problems with the ban, citing the lack of coordination for after-school pick-ups or communication over daily struggles such as school bullies.

Landyn Spellberg, a Broward County school board student adviser, said there are benefits to phones and the district’s ban isn’t helping students learn how to use technology in a safe, healthy way.

“I think it’s important that we teach students about the negatives,” he said. “We don’t inform students of those things.”

The survey also gathered the No. 1 concerns of the participants, finding that the lack of communication between parent and child in an emergency was the driving force of parents’ dissatisfaction with the ban. The worry is deeply rooted in the district’s community as it’s the home to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which had a school shooting that killed 17 people in 2018.

To ease parents’ concerns, the district has confirmed that students would be allowed full access to their phones in an emergency, but also that the enforcement of the ban hasn’t been consistent and will take time to solidify.

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Teachers have found it difficult to monitor students’ phone usage, as many students use their cellphones to access online lessons, resources, and even turn in assignments. Not every student has a school-issued laptop, preventing them from having access to the same material other students do during class.

“I don’t expect students to say — or parents of high schoolers to say — right, that they don’t want their kids to have cellphones,” said Howard Hepburn, Broward superintendent of schools. “The expectation that we’re going to just have a hard stop is not reality. It takes time.”