Minnesota Considers School Cell Phone Ban

The ban is not quite as encompassing as that of North Dakota; a concession lawmakers said was necessary in order to get an official piece of legislation on the books.

MOORHEAD, MN (KVRR) – Katrina Ball, a co-lead for the Distraction Free Schools Policy Project in Minnesota, initially focused on a cell phone ban for her local school district in Battle Lake.

Quickly, though, she came to find that a tedious and ineffective method for policy change.

“If we wait for all 330+ school districts to come to the same conclusion – that’s so inefficient,” she explained.

She’s now thrown her support behind SF 508 – a Minnesota State Senate bill that its sponsors say would greatly improve the classroom environment.

“Screen overuse and misuse detracts from students’ opportunities to have a quality educational experience,” said co-sponsor state Sen. Jordan Rasmusson.

The legislation would ban phones bell-to-bell for students K through 8, with accessible storage for grades 9 through 12 – a concession Rasmusson says was necessary for it to gain traction.

“We would like to get a bill across the finish line this year. Not everyone is fully supportive of taking cell phones out of schools. This is one of the compromises that’s reflected in the legislation,” he said.

Ball, an advocate for full bell-to-bell prohibition – which is North Dakota’s policy – says she wishes Minnesota didn’t have this caveat, but that it’s better than no ban at all.

Both Ball and Rasmusson say that concerns regarding student safety in them being separated from their devices are unfounded and that educational outcomes only get better when these distractions are removed.

“There’s no place for a phone in a learning environment,” said Ball.

So far, 19 states plus Washington, D.C. have introduced a bell-to-bell ban.

However, most of those plans involve some level of accessible storage – only North Dakota and Rhode Island keep those devices away from students for the entirety of the school day.