NC House sets up vote on bill to ban cell phones in schools

State lawmakers are continuing their push to make schools ban cell phones in the classroom, setting up a vote for Tuesday in the state House on one of the bills moving forward in the legislature.

A bill in the state Senate, SB55, would require schools to ban many different types of electronic devices, including laptops and tablets, during instructional time. The House version of the bill, HB87, is less strict. It focuses only on cell phones. And instead of requiring schools to fully ban them, it would require schools "to eliminate or severely restrict student access to cell phones during instructional time."

In Wake County, the state's largest school district, school board members will meet Tuesday to discuss a plan to require students to have their cell phones silenced or turned off for the entire day, and to let principals come up with additional rules for their individual schools.

WRAL has previously reported that many — but not all — schools in North Carolina already ban cell phones to cut down on classroom disruption, but that enforcement varies. Lawmakers want a uniform rule in place statewide, to ensure every school is thinking about the issue.

The sponsor of the House bill Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, has said his bill is intentionally open to interpretation, to allow school board leaders to come up with the details of how strict a ban should be, as well as how to enforce it, rather than having the legislature dictate those terms.

"We just think school boards are smart enough to figure out what works in their county," Jackson said Monday.

For instance, he said, his home of Moore County allows cell phones to be used at lunch or in the hallways between classes, whereas in neighboring Chatham County, some schools ban cell phone use for the entire school day.

Rep. John Torbett, R-Gaston, said he wanted a carveout in the bill to make sure schools couldn't do what places like Chatham County are doing, with a day-long ban on phones — which some counties have been enforcing by locking phones away. Torbett said if a student sees someone with a gun on campus, for instance, he'd like that student to have access to a phone to be able to call the police.

"Nothing during instructional periods of time," Torbett said of phone usage. "I'm with you on that one. I got that. But to thoroughly deny access to a phone — which [school districts] could do if we allow them to make their own rules — I think might just be causing us some heartache down the road."