By The Herald Editorial Board
Educational policy may not move quickly — it’s taken about 17 years since the introduction of Apple’s iPhone and its competitors to see a groundswell of consensus on addressing the use of smartphones in classrooms — but school districts, the state’s public schools agency and now start lawmakers are answering the call.
Bills in the House and Senate — House Bill 1122 and Senate Bill 5346 — have been introduced and referred to respective education committees; both would require the state’s nearly 300 school districts to adopt policies that restrict the use of cellphones during classroom time, by the start of the 2026-27 school year.
That follows guidance by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal last summer that advised those districts to begin working with their communities to adopt policies restricting phone use by the start of school this fall. OSPI’s guidance, while offering suggested policy, doesn’t carry the force of law, which the legislation would.
In issuing the agency’s encouragement for districts to start work in drafting policies, Reykdal said the necessity was clear for schools to reduce the distractions that phones — and the social media apps that run on them — are bringing into classrooms.
Those distractions have been noted nationwide for negative effects on student achievement, mental health, cyber-bullying and teacher morale.
Data gathered for the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the federal Department of Education, found that 40 percent of U.S. school districts reported a negative impact on student learning from phones; while 41 percent reported a negative impact on teacher and staff morale.
Research, for a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, drew from a range of studies that identified smartphone and social media use for an increase in mental distress, self-injuring behavior and increased risk of suicide; their effects on individual student’s views of themselves and their interpersonal relationships; and sleep deprivation and its effects on cognition and academic performance.
Likewise, the U.S. surgeon general issued a 2023 report that warned that the effects of social media — in the form of popular phone apps such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and others — on adolescent mental health were not fully understood and that that lack of understanding was occurring at a time of growing concern for the mental health, physical well-being and social development of children and teens.
Youths see the harms, too.
The presence of social media in the lives of U.S. teens is nearly universal; about 95 percent say they use social media platforms — most frequently TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat — with two-thirds using them for an average of three hours each day and 1 in 5 using it “almost constantly,” according to a 2022 Pew Research Center report, leading to a lack of sufficient sleep and problems with attention to studies and tasks.
While OPSI’s recommendation and the legislation can’t address what happens outside of the classroom, removing that distraction can at least give kids a break during the school day.
Measured restrictions for smartphones aren’t a rejection of technology or the internet, even in the classroom; both are key to student development of skills they need now and later in life in navigating their lives and careers. Yet protection of young minds requires guardrails that allow their focus to be free of distractions and the content of what’s on their screens to be beneficial to learning.
It shouldn’t be difficult for districts to develop those guardrails.
Reykdal, in his guidance from last summer, drew on an example from the Reardon-Edwall School District, a district of less than 700 students, west of Spokane.
Working with staff and parents before then 2022-23 school year, the district adopted a policy that required:
Phones be kept in lockers or classroom cubbies during the school day;
High school students could use phones during the morning break and at lunch;
Elementary students would give their phones to teachers at the day’s start to be locked in a drawer; and
Parents or guardians needing to contact students could do so by leaving a message with the school office.
As part of the legislation, OSPI would be expected to provide by this December a report with a summary of policies and procedures already in effect in Washington, among them the Everett and Monroe school districts; exceptions for emergencies, students with disabilities, health concerns or language barriers and draft recommendations and a model policy to be shared with school districts.
The results for Reardon-Edwall, said its Superintendent Eric Sobotta, were a marked improvement.
“Truthfully, it went way better than I thought it would last year,” he said as part of OSPI’s guidance report. “It has not gone perfectly, but it did go well, and we are continuing our stance going into the 2024-25 school year. As the saying goes, ‘now that we know better, we need to do better.’”
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