School Phone Bans

Banning cell phones in schools as seemingly become a non-partisan issue. Fox News Radio's Tonya J. Powers joins us to discuss which states have banned cell phones in schools. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So should your kids be fooling around with their phone
at school? I don't think anybody thinks so. But as
schools go back, there are some states red and blue,
New York one of them that have banned cell phones.
So is it that you don't want the state telling
your kid or you that your child should have a phone.
That's contentious and how well does it work? Fox News

(00:22):
Radio is Tanya J. Powers is in New York City
and joins us on the liveline. Tanya, thanks for doing
this today.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hey, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
So talk to us a little bit about that contention.
What's the argument and how well is it working well?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
This is the first time that it has been implemented.
Back to school today will be the first day that
they've had the cell phone ban in place since it
was signed into law. The law that band stem from
that the Governor Hokal signed. They are trying to it's
New York State's attempt to create, as they call it,
distraction free schools. It does not apply to the school

(01:00):
issued devices like laptops and chromebooks and things like that,
but it does apply to personal cell phones, laptops, tablets, iPads,
game consoles, smart watches, it could be any of those
things that they're talking about. They'll put them a in
one of those yonder pouches, the lockable cases that secure
their cell phones at the beginning of the school day,
and at the dismissal they unlock them and make them back.

(01:23):
That's how this is just as supposed to work. The
bigger picture here is not just the story, is not
just hey, New York City's doing something, because you know,
most of the rest of America's like And the bigger
picture that I thought was worth a discussion was the
fact that you have thirty one states and the District

(01:43):
of Columbia who have all agreed on cell phone bans
in schools. They all have put policies or laws into
place that banned school use personal cell phones and devices
in schools. And that list is not just a bunch
of red states or blue states. This is the one
thing that apparently people on both sides of the isle

(02:05):
and red and blue states can agree on. You know,
I thought it was it was kind of extraordinary when
you can get California and Alabama on the same side
as something. Boy to me, that seems like a big,
a big headline and That's one of the reasons I
wanted to talk about this, the fact that it's the
first day of school, you know, this kind of the

(02:25):
news angle. But yeah, I mean, you've got states that
you know, don't see eye to eye politically, and this
is the one thing that can can seemingly bring folks together.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
And Tanya, is it better from a low standpoint to
have it at the state level, so then the school
districts don't have to get caught up in the politics.
It's just like, hey, that's the state law, and it
takes a little pressure off of them as far as
parent pressure and everything.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
It may it may do that because one of the
things that I've noticed in kind of like researching, and
by the way, if you want to see kind of
where different states stand on this, the Education Week did
a really good piece on They broke down each particular
state and what their policy is when it was signed
into law. A lot of them are new. Some states
have been doing this for a little longer, but a
lot of them are new. They've been signed in the

(03:13):
last couple of years. But some states will even you know,
say that Okay, school districts, it's up to you to
you know, decide what works for you. Some school districts
will even have even kind of passed that to the
schools and said, okay, here's you know, Taylor, this to
what works for your particular school. You know, I'm sure
in some places they're like, no, this is it. It's

(03:34):
across the board. We're going to have a van either way.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Like I said, school districts may be given more leniency
or leeway to interpret that in some in some places
more than others.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
By the way, there's no statewide band on cell phones
in Michigan. It's a district by district thing times. Jpowers
Will with Fox News Radio in New York this morning,
thank you for your time today.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Sure, thank you,