Cellphone Ban Inches Closer to Taking Effect in SC Public Schools

When the newest state budget was passed in July, included was a proviso that required all public school districts in South Carolina to create a policy that would ban cell phones in all schools or risk losing state funding. 

The initiative was then shifted to the State Board of Education to draft a model policy for districts to follow, even though the final policy creation rests with each individual district. 

The State Board of Education gave the initial okay to the model policy at their meeting on August 13 but delayed giving the final okay to the measure until next month at their September meeting to ensure that the policy does not have any gaps left to fill. 

“It's needed, it is most assuredly needed, it's just a little, to me, rushed," board Chair David O'Shields said during the Policy and Legislative Committee's meeting. "And I don't like my eggs runny."

Once the new policy is passed by the Board, districts will have the rest of 2024 to draft their policy in time for it to be implemented at the start of 2025. 

The policy states that devices have to be put away from the time the morning tardy bell rings to dismissal at the end of the school day. 

Districts have some leeway to decide if they want the policy to be stricter including if cellphones can be banned on field trips, school buses and at athletic events. 

School districts can also completely ban cellphones and other devices such as smartwatches and tablets and the accessories that go with them such as wireless earbuds and headphones from campus. 

The policy does make exceptions for those who have to have their device for medical reasons such as diabetics, students who need the device as part of their IEP or 504 plan and students who are local first responders although these students have to receive permission from their district's superintendent.

While districts have the ability to make their own policy stricter than the state’s policy, they cannot make the policy more lenient. 

“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 education board’s policy does not clearly state how schools are supposed to enforce this cellphone ban or what the consequences should be if a student is caught breaking the ban. 

Some people worry that the consequences would remove children from the classroom which would achieve the opposite of what the goal of the ban is, which is to make students less distracted in the classroom. 

"I'm worried that students who violate this rule will be subjected to harsh discipline," Jennifer Rainville, an education policy attorney with the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center said in an article by The Post and Courier

The policy initially came about after the South Carolina State Department of Education surveyed 9,000 teachers in the state, nearly all of whom said they would support additional limits on cellphone usage in the classroom or would support an outright ban.