Committee on education is called to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? Chairwoman Pawankey? Here. Senator Geiss? Present. Senator Chang? Here. Senator Camilleri? Here. Senator Erwin? Here. Senator Demouse? Here. Senator Johnson? Here. Madam chair, you have seven members present. There is a quorum. I'll entertain a motion to adopt the meeting minutes from March 5. So moved by vice chair Geist. Without objection, the minutes are adopted. We have all members present. Today, we are discussing senate bill two three four, which I introduced. If passed, my bill, senate bill two three four,
would require all public school districts in Michigan to implement cell phone policies with the goal of reducing student cell phone use and distractions in school settings. We worked closely with the executive office of the governor and the Michigan Department of Education in crafting this bill. As of this month, at least 25 states have school cell phone laws or policies. Specifically, my bill would require a cell phone policy for all school buildings in each school district beginning in the 2526 school year.
The policies must aim to limit cell phone use during school hours and reduce distractions in classroom settings. Exceptions must be provided for emergency situations, medical use, and devices including in a student included in a student's individualized education plan. Further exceptions can be implemented at a school's discretion. Lastly, cell phone policies would have to be posted on the school district's website. I'd like to note that a bill substitute is currently being crafted that would make
clear that schools must enforce the cell phone policies they enact. I believe that each school district should be able to devise a policy that is right for the school community it serves, which is why my legislation provides flexibility for schools to create plans that best suit their needs. I look forward to hearing testimony on this bill today. I'd like to welcome some people who have asked to testify beginning with Olivia Ponti, legislative liaison at the Michigan Department of Education. Good afternoon. My name is Olivia Ponti,
the legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Education. Thank you, Chair Polhinke and members of the committee for allowing me the chance to speak in support of Senate Bill two thirty four today. The bill aims to address the growing concern of cell phone use in our schools. As educators, policymakers, parents, and concerned citizens, we all share the common goal of creating a focused, supportive, educational environment with limited distractions in the classroom. With the explosion of cell phone usage among children in recent years, it's time for the state to reflect upon how we can best support our students
in this new era. Senate bill two thirty four offers this support by requiring local school districts to establish a cell phone policy that fits the unique needs of their district. Data released in February from the National Center for Education Statistics or NCES showed us just how significant the problem of cell phones in schools has become. Nationally, more than half of public school leaders feel that their students' academic performance has been negatively affected by cell phone usage. More than two thirds feel that cell phones have had a negative impact on their
students' mental health and attention span. That said, a one size fits all approach would not work in Michigan. What works in a large urban district may not work in a small rural one. To that point, while some teachers may incorporate technology in every lesson that they plan, others may not even have access to reliable Internet connectivity or cellular service for all their students. That's why local flexibility is essential. This legislation recognizes this reality by empowering local school boards to reflect upon what will
best work in their communities. One district could choose to implement a policy that would allow cell phones to be used only for instructional purposes, while another could choose to ban cell phones altogether. Different districts just have different needs. Lastly, the bill includes the necessary safeguards to keep our children safe. Local board policies would have to include exceptions for devices necessary for medical use or devices specified in an individual's individualized education program. Furthermore, the policy would have to provide for an exception in emergency situations.
Ultimately, senate bill two thirty four strikes the right balance between addressing a pressing state and national concern and respecting the diverse realities of Michigan school districts. It's a thoughtful and flexible approach that would help more children focus and more teachers teach in class. Thank you again, Chair Pol Hanke and members of the committee for your time, your attention, and your dedication to school children. And I'd be happy to answer any questions. Senator Johnson. Thank you, madam chair. Under this policy, what would you consider emergency? I would leave that up to local school boards to decide.
That is how the policy is written, and that's why this bill is so, unique and that it lets the school boards decide what is an emergency in their district. Okay. And just one more question. Can't the school boards already decide what's best for their school district when it comes to electronics, including cell phone use? Absolutely. I think the beauty of this bill is that it requires all school boards, not just the ones who currently decide to implement these policies, to at least reflect upon how they can best serve their kids.
So that regardless of ZIP code, all children are being considered. Thank you. I just wonder if we had something like that for reading, if it would be really helpful. So I think the the question that I asked is how many school districts don't have a cell phone policy? We reached out to you, and it, the answer is by law, MDE cannot collect data on how many school districts have a cell phone policy. This is because section twelve eighty one b of the revised school code prevents the state from collecting data that isn't statutorily
required to be collected. I have heard anecdotally, however, that some school districts don't have a cell phone policy, or if they have it, it's not enforced. At my school district, I taught every grade in high school over a couple decades, and, the reason why it wasn't necessarily a problem with with me, a, I had good classroom management, but, b, I was supported by the administration. The cell phone policy was strictly enforced. If you don't have that and the kids know that it's not enforced, that's when you run into problems.
Senator Jamouse. Thank you. And this is more of a comment. I'll try to I guess there's no real way to phrase in the form of a question, but I just wanted to say and correct me if I'm wrong, I guess, in my understanding, but I'm very pleased to see sort of the case by case basis. And if this adds to the legitimacy of this bill, then, that I had a call with with someone who was very concerned up in our district, we're in a rural district, with the outright potential outright ban of cell phones because so many kids walk to school on the one hand and other kids some kids have a a bus ride an hour long.
But he also at the same time said that this is a school district that did come up with their way was to buy these little pouches where they lock the phones in. He said in his thirty five years in the educational space, it's the best decision he ever made. That it's revolutionized their school, not just in terms of learning, but even at you look into the lunchroom and where kids used to be doing this, they're interacting now. They're playing games together. Do it they're doing things. He said so he just encouraged me to allow them the flexibility to make it right for their district. Like, don't just ban it,
but he was very supportive of this whole concept. So I think that's the beauty of this bill. You can do least restrictive or you can do the the pouches, which would be, I guess, as the most restrictive, but it's it's up to the individualized school district. Thank you. Next up, we have Doctor Vanessa Keesler, president and CEO at Launch Michigan. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Polanky and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting Launch here to testify, and in support of Senate Bill two thirty four. I appreciate your introductory comments and the excellent testimony just provided by the Michigan Department
of Education. So I'll be brief, as ours tracks largely with that. You know, obviously, we know cell phones are part of life for all of us. I just carried mine up here because I have notes on it, and and we know that that's part of it. And we know it's part of our kids' lives. As shared by the stories, children use it when they're going to school. They use it. I mean, it's it's important. And we know it is beginning to interfere has been interfering with, education and and our ability to connect and to learn those important soft skills in school. Something that Launch Michigan cares a lot about and has been talking a lot about is the Michigan education guarantee and the importance for Michigan to commit that every student
graduates with those future ready skills and competencies. And as we've worked on that, one of the key things that comes up when I was talking to a business owner the other day, and he said, it's not so much they can't do math. It's that they don't know how to be on teams, or they don't know how to work with each other. They don't know how to resolve conflict. And this, you might be like, what's this have to do with cell phones? When we're in our cell phone, we're only interacting with the people who are most directly related to us or who we want to interact with. We aren't in, you know, different groups of people. We aren't working on that conflict resolution, that communication, that teamwork.
And that is just one of several reasons, but it did make me think about this bill in another light, that if we really want our students to be prepared for the future, they have to be able to do more than just interact on their wireless devices. So appreciate this bill, agree it's excellent to have a requirement for a policy. I think that the question about the ability of local districts to do this anyway is a good one and reiterating that it is sometimes helpful to local districts to have requirements in place, because local boards and local administration deal with parents who have different feelings about every parent has their own feeling about whether or not their child should be able to
use the phone and when. And as a mom myself, sometimes I like to be able to just text my kid and find out what he's doing. Maybe that's not the best for his attention span at school. So, I think it is it is good to have a policy in place that people can or a law in place that districts can refer to. Agree. Thank you, Senator Polank. You had some data too on states, but you beat me to the punch. We would not be the first. And, you know, Michigan in general is working to, become more of a top 10 state. And so this if other states are doing this, we should not get behind. We should get on board the train and learn from the example of others.
And I do wanna echo the point made about one size not fitting all. You'll always hear this in Michigan, but with good reason. With over 800 districts spread all across our great state, the needs and what this looks like and what local communities need to support will just be different. The instructional practice will be different. So in conclusion, we are supportive of the bill, and we thank you for the opportunity to be here. Senator Chang. Thank you, chairwoman, and thank you for your testimony. So with the 25 other states that have passed, these policy or these laws, sounds like there's a little bit of a range in terms of states that have
adopted different types of laws. But is there anything that you've seen in terms of, the impact of these laws on student mental health, student achievement, that type of thing, or is it too early to tell? I think it's early to tell conclusively in a research sense, but I think the reason you're seeing such a upswell of this is the early data coming back from administrators like the story shared by the senator. You know, local teachers, leaders are saying, this has really helped. This has changed. And so I think sometimes we have to work on the leading data that we have before we you know,
and let the other data catch up. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next up for a brief testimony, Jennifer Smith, director of government relations at Michigan Association of School Boards. Brief because you asked for brief, not because I'm gonna cut you off. Okay. My name is Jennifer Smith, and I'm director of government relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards. And as many of you know, we represent the all of the elected boards across the state. We agree that schools should be looking at a cell phone policy for their students, and we support this bill and this approach. The bill would require schools to have a policy,
but leave the details to the locals to determine what's best for their students, teachers, and community. We also strongly agree with the inclusion of exemptions for medical use and for IEPs. Taking phones away from them could be harmful, both to their academics and to their health. This will allow districts that currently have policies that are working for them to continue to have them without the state mandating exactly what it needs to say and having to revisit policies that they feel are, are appropriate. As has already been said, we know one size fits all policies do not work in our schools,
and this is no different. The only concern that we have is with the start date in 2526 simply based on the timing of passage of this bill. If the bill does not get to the governor's desk before the close even of this school year, it's going to be very difficult for boards to have thoughtful conversations and pass a policy before school begins again in August or September. So we just ask for that thought as we move through, to make sure that the timing allows for thoughtful conversation and not to have to adopt a policy because it's required the next day at school.
We encourage you to support this bill and the flexibility for our local districts to make the most appropriate decisions on this issue. And just to add an example to what, Senator Moose was saying, in for my high schooler, he has four classes, two of them, he has to drop his phone in a pocket when he walks in the room. Two of them, they use it for instructional purposes. And so it is useful to have it for that, but then the other teachers don't allow it. With Senate Bill two thirty four, our school would be able to maintain that sort of policy teacher by teacher,
if that's what they chose to do. And we really appreciate that that all of the flexibility is there so that we can make the right decisions for where the school is located, the population of that school, and what the parents are looking forward to. And I'd be happy to take any questions. Yeah. So if they have a good policy, you can keep that policy. Right. Under this bill. Yes. Yeah. And and thank you for the timeline noted, concern. That's something I didn't think about. I'm willing to be flexible with the start date. Vice chair Geis has a question. Yeah. Thank you. Excuse me.
Both, you and miss Ponti from MDE mentioned medical and IEPs, are but haven't specifically said five zero fours. So just for the for the sake of everyone making sure that five zero fours are, are included in that, because they can be for medical reasons or they can be for other reasons. But I just want to make sure that we're not missing. Right. I would agree. We wanna make sure if you've got a plan, an academic plan that requires the use of a cell phone,
we don't want that taken away. Vice chair, guys, I think five zero fours are scooped up in IEPs, but if they're not they're not, then we can list five zero fours separately. Happy to do that. Senator Demuse. Just briefly, I wonder if you could emphasize that point. I believe an earlier speaker may have said that, but my wife serves on our school board there. And I think I'll tell me about how this often works with the interaction with the public. I think she'd just as soon have no choice but to have to consider this because of the potential because they can't decide anything with the parents involved here.
And I mean, yes, I want parents involved in education, but tell me how this, how school board members you've talked to feel about this, that now they have to at least express some decision on this. It's almost out of their hands. Right? We do quite honestly have boards that would appreciate the mandate of a policy, but they still fall under, but let us decide the details. We have many boards that have already adopted policies. Unfortunately, as Senator Bill Henke asked earlier, we don't know for sure how many because it's an optional thing districts can do.
So with no reporting, we don't know how many there are. But I do know there are districts out there that are worried that parents are gonna push back, that they want their kids to have a phone at all times. And so by the state saying you have to have a policy, that sets them on the road of creating something. But what they don't want is the state to say you have to have a policy that says X, so to still have that flexibility Alright. Thank you. Can you please read the cards in for the record? Noah Smith, on behalf of Michigan Association of School Psychologists, the Michigan Association of School Social Workers,
supporting from both organizations. Peter Spada, former Michigan Alliance for Student Achievement supports. Rafael Johnson, one eighty program foundation supports as well. Being no further business, the Senate Committee on Education is now adjourned.