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your homegrown newspaper September 4, 2024
Vol. 20, No. 51
Educators, parents advocate stricter classroom controls on smartphones
Wachholz donates pg. 5
Citing academic and social impacts, Montana schools are increasingly turning their attention to cell phone restrictions and bans. by Alex Sakariassen, Montana Free Press
Research pg. 12
Space careers pg. 14
BILLINGS — Throughout the 2023-24 school year, Billings Public Schools Superintendent Erwin Garcia grew increasingly troubled by a sight he repeatedly witnessed in classrooms around the district: students scrolling their smartphones, their attention wrenched from the lessons unfolding before them. His mind turned to the district’s flagging high school test scores, to the national statistics he’d seen on rising rates of anxiety, depression and other disorders among America’s youth, and to the reams of research partly linking such challenges to smartphones and social media.
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“There is something that generated all these issues,” Garcia told Montana Free Press last week. “And so as we researched it, I felt this is the time to make a change.” Students and teachers returning to Billings classrooms next week will find themselves navigating a new district-wide policy governing the presence of smartphones in schools. The restrictions, crafted by Garcia and fellow educators and
approved by the school board in July, prohibit high school students from using their phones in class and direct teachers to ensure that phones are deposited in a communal classroom storage space. Elementary and middle school students must turn off and stow their phones in backpacks or lockers for the entirety of the school day. The policy also extends to wearable devices such as AirPods and Apple w w w.va l le yj our na l.net
Watches, and recommends that students simply refrain from bringing smartphones and other electronic devices to school. Billings’ new policy highlights a growing call among educators and parents across the state for their local schools to take action in response to student smartphone use. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte joined that chorus last week by distributing a letter to
school administrators and board trustees statewide encouraging them to adopt local policies restricting cell phone use in schools. To bolster his request, Gianforte cited the results of a 2023 survey by the nonprofit Common Sense Media in which 97% of responding students age 11 to 17 reported they’d used their phones during school hours. “Nationally, and in Montana, we see academic performance declining and rates of mental health disorders, from anxiety and depression to eating disorders, among young people increasing,” Gianfore wrote. “As educators, you see firsthand the strong correlation between time spent on smart devices and these problems, and growing bodies of research prove it.” According to Executive Director Lance Melton, the Montana School Boards Association has long offered member districts three separate model policies governing
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