Total ban on in-school cellphone use coasts through first House committee

Close Up Of A Line Of High School Students Using Mobile Phones

Legislation expanding a 2023 law banning students from in-class cellphone use is advancing in the House, where lawmakers agreed that the devices have a detrimental effect on learning.

Members of the Education and Administration Subcommittee voted unanimously for legislation (HB 949) that would prohibit students from cellphone use throughout the school day, rather than just during instructional time.

The bill would also require schools to designate locations on campus where students can use their phones, with permission from a school administrator.

Coral Gables Republican Rep. Demi Busatta, the bill’s sponsor, said its language provides school districts flexibility on how to implement the change. One Miami school issued locking pouches to students so they could still have their phones but couldn’t use them, she said. At least one school in Palm Beach has done the same.

“Cellphones not only cause constant distractions to student’s focus during the school day, which impedes their ability to learn, but it also has shown to increase bullying,” she said Tuesday.

Busatta added that the most frequent argument she hears against her bill has come from parents concerned that they wouldn’t be able to get hold of their kids during school time.

“To which I’ve said, well, when we were in school, we didn’t have phones — except for maybe (Miami Republican Rep. Juan) Porras, because that was, you know, yesterday,” she said to good-natured laughs. “Our parents managed to get a hold of us by calling the front office. We figured it out, and we can continue to do that.”

Porras, who is 27, later retorted, “I had a flip phone, for the record.”

Busatta’s bill is an update to HB 379, which the Legislature unanimously approved in May 2023. That measure banned TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter and other social media platforms on school devices and prohibited students from using their cellphones during class time except for educational purposes, as directed by a teacher.

School administrators from across Florida gave lawmakers mostly positive feedback in January about the relatively new law, which more than a dozen states have since copied. Schools in Orange County have had a bell-to-bell ban for over a year.

And the results are staggering, said Nathan Hoffman, Senior Legislative Director for the education-focused Foundation for Florida’s Future nonprofit. High schools in the district have seen a 31% drop in fighting and a 21% decline in serious misconduct. Middle schools saw a 58% decrease in fighting and a 28% reduction in gross insubordination. The district overall also saw a 158% decrease in school threats.

Hoffman said research shows that 97% of students report using their phones during the school day, usually for more than an hour and a half, and that it takes students more than 23 minutes to get back on task after getting a phone notification and reacting to it. On average, he continued, they receive more than 200 notifications during school.

“This is certainly a distraction that they don’t need during class time,” he said.

Hoffman’s group supports HB 949. So does the conservative Florida Citizens Alliance.

Ocoee Democratic Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis said the bill makes sense, but expressed worry that broadening the ban more than the measure contemplates could put kids at risk.

“Things have changed, and because of school lockdowns and school shootings I do have concerns if this were to go even a step further in terms of the pouches, where students wouldn’t have access at all to their cellphones,” she said.

Miami Beach Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe spoke to the addictiveness of cellphones and noted that other countries, including the United Kingdom and France, have implemented similar restrictions.

“You see adults have a hard time. Imagine kids. It’s like psychological manipulation,” he said. “I’m glad that we’re really strengthening this and giving teachers and parents kind of that extra push they’re going to need. I mean, it’s really hard to tell a kid, ‘Hey, we need to take your phone away.’ But when you say that it’s the law, it just kind of ends the conversation there.”

HB 949 does not have a Senate companion, according to the Senate and House websites. But it’s not the only bill looking at cracking down on cellphone use in filed this year.

Zephyrhills Republican Sen. Danny Burgess, who sponsored the upper-chamber analogue of HB 379 in 2023, is carrying a measure (SB 1296) that would study the effects of a full-school-day ban on cellphones in six school districts in the 2025-26 school year.

Burgess’ bill is also without a House companion.

HB 949 will next go to the Education and Employment Committee before reaching the House floor. SB 1296 awaits a hearing before the first of three committees to which it was referred last week.