Educators and Parents Advocate Stricter Classroom Controls on Smartphones

by Alex Sakariassen, MTFP - 08.27.2024 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.

"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 class rooms 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 depos ited 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 Watches, and recommends that stu dents 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 w...