A 10-year-old Utah student recently told his mother he was glad to see fewer phones at lunch. The year before, he said, everyone was looking at their screens during what was supposed to be their chance to talk to each other.
Another Utah parent sees it differently. Her fifth grader uses his phone as a connection between two households, and she worries that requiring him to contact her through the school makes a simple situation more complicated.
Both reactions are understandable. And both are part of what Utah is beginning to learn as new expectations around cellphones take effect in our public schools.
I sponsored the legislation that changed Utah’s statewide default for cellphone use in schools. The premise was straightforward: during the school day, phones should be put away by default. Variations from that default should be adopted locally after careful consideration. The bill that passed allowed local districts to adopt their own preference informed by their own communities.
Already, we’re seeing communities make different choices. Alpine, Beaver, Park City and several other districts have chosen to follow the statewide default throughout the school day. Davis, Jordan, Weber and others restrict phones throughout the day in younger grades while allowing older students to use them during lunch or between classes. North Summit and Sevier allow access outside instructional time for all grades.
Those differences shouldn’t bother us; they should spark our interest in what different approaches have to teach us.
Policy humility is required when making and implementing changes like this. State leaders can have compelling reasons to act without assuming we know every detail of the ideal solution for every situation in every school and community.
Sometimes the Legislature has an obligation to address a statewide problem, and cellphone use in schools clearly met that threshold. With the state silent, local schools were forced to decide, “How can we restrict cellphones to limit the damage they cause?”
With a statewide baseline policy, districts and charters can now answer a different question: “Where might we allow this technology help students thrive?” That approach doesn’t require the Legislature to settle every implementation question. It also recognizes the limits of what can and should be decided from the Capitol.
I don’t know whether the best policy for a high school student is exactly the same as the best policy for a third grader. I don’t know whether what works at a small school in rural Utah will work equally well at a school with 2,500 students along the Wasatch Front. But we now have an opportunity to learn from different approaches, and from each other.
At Dixie High School, one senior told KSL that keeping phones out of class makes it easier to make friends because students aren’t constantly on social media. Educators have reported better engagement and positive changes in how students interact. At the same time, parents have raised legitimate concerns about communication, implementation and the additional demands policies may place on schools. We should pay attention to all of it.
Maybe one approach will prove so effective and strike just the right balance that schools throughout Utah choose to adopt it. Maybe we’ll find that different approaches work for different ages or communities. Most likely, we’ll learn things nobody, including me, anticipated when the legislation was debated and passed.
That’s the advantage of allowing local variety. It gives experience a chance to inform the next decision.
Too often, government, especially government far removed from the people it serves, sees differences among states and communities and assumes they are a problem to be corrected. They might be. Sometimes. But uniformity isn’t synonymous with good policy.
Local control doesn’t mean the state has no role. It means being thoughtful about where that role ends and where policy made closer to the people it affects begins. That’s policy humility.
Cellphones in schools are one example, but the principle extends far beyond them. Utah is one state. It isn’t just one community. State policy should recognize both realities.