What students can expect from the coming cellphone ban

Dan Hedberg started teaching at Willamette High School in the early 2000s, before smartphones dominated teenagers’ lives.

Hedberg, now director of secondary education at Bethel School District, remembers the switch in 2012 when smartphones got cheaper and more students began coming to school with them. 

He remembers early attempts at regulating them: pouches in classrooms and “cell motels” constructed in woodworking classes.

He remembers the descent into distraction and phone reliance that now define the generations of children and adults who grew up with personal devices.

Schools across the country have taken action to limit cellphone use at school in attempts to curb the addiction, and improve learning and student mental health. And school districts in Eugene and Springfield are next.

Local schools will begin enforcing Gov. Tina Kotek’s school cellphone ban to different degrees this fall. Springfield Public Schools and Bethel School District will start the school year with the ban in place. Eugene School District 4J will wait until January to begin enforcing its ban.

What the Kotek’s order requires

The governor’s executive order, issued July 2, states that schools must ban K-12 students’ use of “personal electronic devices,” from the start of the school day to the end. This includes free periods, lunches and time between classes.

Cellphones, smart watches, iPods, smart glasses, tablets and any device that connects to the internet, except for laptops, are subject to the ban.

While Eugene and Springfield schools already had policies in place that limited student phone use, many older students could use their phones at school when they were not in a class. Now students will need to keep their devices away for the whole school day. 

Kotek’s order gives districts some freedom on how they can create their cellphone bans.

Districts are required to detail where students will store their personal devices during the school day and how the new rules will be enforced. Schools are not allowed to use suspension or expulsion to discipline students over phone use, because it results in lost instructional time.

The order also says schools must make exceptions for students with specific medical needs, individualized education programs and other special circumstances.

But the state has yet to send a sample policy to districts, which Springfield, Bethel and 4J leaders are waiting on before they begin to officially make their policies.

How schools plan to implement the ban

Start dates of the ban will vary. Springfield and Bethel will begin the year with working policies that will be refined and voted on by their school boards to become official policies.

The executive order requires each Oregon school district to adopt a policy by Oct. 31 and begin enforcement by Jan. 1. Here is each district’s approach:

• 4J: The district plans launch the cellphone ban in January, on the first day back from winter break, said 4J spokesperson Kelly McIver. Enforcement methods may vary from school to school, but McIver said there must be uniform elements to create equitable outcomes.

• Bethel: The ban is expected to be phased in during the first two weeks of school and refined as necessary when a policy is adopted by the school board. Teachers and administrators will introduce and explain the ban during the first week of school, and begin enforcing it with full consequences the second week. Enforcement methods and specifics about where phones will be kept will be handled school-by-school, because some schools have lockers and some don’t, said Dan Hedberg, director of secondary education at Bethel.

• Springfield: Students will experience the ban on the first day of school. Brian Richardson, the district’s director of communications and community engagement, said the district will adopt the ban in practice, but will refine the implementation after the school board adopts a policy. Enforcement methods will be school-based.

Before Kotek’s executive order, most elementary and middle school students in Eugene and Springfield had an “off-and-away-all-day” policy, which mirrored Kotek’s ban of prohibiting phone use from the beginning to the end of the school day.

That means high schoolers will feel the brunt of the new restrictions. School leaders are anticipating a challenging period of adjustment.

“We are dealing with a whole bunch of young people who are literally addicted to these devices,” McIver said.

Bethel has hosted three community meetings to gather feedback, and the district posted a survey that garnered 350 responses.

McIver said 4J will be having community feedback sessions leading up to the adoption of the policy.

Richardson said members of the public can participate in public comment at Springfield Board of Education meetings if they’d like to submit feedback.