Why Should Delaware Care?
Although Delaware’s school districts already have policies on cellphone use in the classroom, a bill that would require districts and charters to establish policies restricting cellphone use is awaiting Gov. Matt Meyer’s signature. Some school districts have looked to update their existing policies ahead of the bill’s implementation.
The Christina School District is requiring students at five of its schools to stow away their phones in locked pouches – a move that highlights the costly but escalating prohibitions on the use of cellphones in classrooms across the state.
The new policy is a six-month pilot program that replaces a looser cellphone ban in classrooms. It also comes in response to the introduction of Senate Bill 106, which state lawmakers passed last month and currently awaits the governor’s signature.
In recent year, schools across the country have been banning phones in various ways, in response to their disruptive apps and their distracting ringtones. A survey conducted in 2024 by Pew Research found that 72% of U.S. high school teachers said cellphone distraction is a major problem within their classrooms.
Christina Director of Student Services and Whole Child Support Gina Moody said the district may eventually update its existing cellphone policy for all of its schools with stricter policies. Whether they adopt lockable pouches districtwide will depend on the cost and success of the pilot program.
At least five other Delaware school districts have policies that direct at least some of their schools to require students to place phones in such locked pouches.
“We’re going through some recreating and updating based off of Senate Bill 106, but also because we just feel it’s good to have,” Moody said.
SB 106 would require that every school district and charter school in the state set a policy limiting phone usage during instructional time. It also requires that schools set consequences for students violating the cellphone policy, and that those include exceptions for emergencies.
The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Eric Buckson (R-Dover) and Rep. Kim Williams (D-Stanton), passed both the House and the Senate last month.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Matt Meyer confirmed he plans on signing the legislation “later in March.”
Existing phone policies in Delaware
All 19 of Delaware’s school districts already limit cellphone use in class, but the policies vary widely.
Some, such as the Sussex Vocational Technical School District, require students to place their phones in a “designated area like a caddy box upon entering class.”
Others, like the Seaford School District, which updated its existing phone policy last month, have different requirements for differing grade levels.
Seaford’s elementary students must have their devices powered off and kept out of sight all day. In middle school, students are able to use their phones in the morning, before the school day begins, and in the afternoon after it ends.
Seaford’s policy for high schoolers simply says phones cannot disrupt student learning, and “any approved program at the high school which expands the use of technology for educational purposes will be monitored and revised as needed.”
Buckson told Spotlight Delaware last spring that he had learned about other districts’ phone policies while drafting the bill, and said they “gave credibility” to his desire not to rewrite regulations for districts that already have effective rules.
He said his bill was drafted to give guidance, but not impose specific rules.
“Maybe the pouches are something [districts are] already doing. Maybe it’s something that’s cost-prohibitive at this time, or it’s just something they don’t need to do because they’ve got other measures,” Buckson said at the time.
Updating established policies
Although Delaware’s schools already had policies in place prior to Buckson’s bill, the legislation has inspired some districts to update those rules.
Moody said the goal for the Christina School District is to have a “more universal process,” throughout its schools for cellphone policies.
Currently for schools that aren’t part of its new pilot program, the district prohibits phone use during instructional time but does not completely ban phones in schools, according to a report from the Newark Post last fall.
But Moody said educators have approached that rule in various ways from class to class.
“You may go in some classrooms, and there are no cellphones out, and some classrooms may have them in a [cellphone pouch],” she said.
In January, the Christina School District implemented their new pilot program in Gauger-Cobbs Middle School, Kirk Middle School, Shue-Medill Middle School, the Bayard School’s middle school students, and Newark High School.
Students in those schools now start their day by turning their phones off and placing them in a pouch, which will remain with them throughout the school day.
After the last bell rings, the pouches can be unlocked at “designated locations” within the school, according to the Christina School District’s website.
Moody said that at the moment, it is unclear if the district would continue with the phone pouches after the pilot program ends this school year. The district must first analyze the results from the five schools and determine whether it is financially sustainable to bring pouches to every school.
“If all things in place point to ‘Yes, we can do this to sustain it,’ then that would be the recommendation,” Moody said.