A sweeping new law requiring all public school districts in New Jersey to adopt policies barring students from using cellphones in classrooms was signed by Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday.
Murphy signed the legislation at Ramsey High School in Bergen County nearly one year after he proposed limiting cellphones in schools. The bill signing was one of the Democrat’s last events before he leaves office on Jan. 20.
“I wish this ban had been in place a long time ago,” Murphy said before signing the law before a group of high school students.
The governor was accompanied by a Ramsey High School senior who said his school’s existing cellphone-free policy that requires students to put devices in locked pouches has been a success since it was implemented last year.
Murphy said the new cellphone ban is part of a broader plan to “rid our classrooms of needless distractions.”
The new law doesn’t immediately ban cellphones in New Jersey public schools. Instead, it directs the state Department of Education to develop guidelines on cellphone and social media use in schools that can later be adopted by the state’s more than 600 school districts.
While some students and parents have called for schools to allow students to carry their cellphones for safety reasons, many teachers have said they have to regularly tell kids to put away their devices in class.
“We do so many jobs as educators in our building. Phone police should not be one of them, but that’s where we are,” Steve Beatty, president of the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said at the bill signing event.
Some schools already ban students from using cellphones at school or require them to lock away devices in lockers or special pouches. But the policies vary according to district.
The new law is designed to make the policies more uniform and guarantee that students are not using their cellphones or accessing social media in classrooms when they should be learning.
The state Assembly and Senate approved the cellphone ban legislation with only three dissenting votes on Dec. 22, three months after the state Commission on the Effects of Social Media Usage in Adolescents asked all schools to prohibit students from using cellphones and social media during the school day.
A statewide policy in New York that took effect in September bars unsanctioned use of cellphones and other devices for the entire school day.
It is unclear exactly what New Jersey’s new cellphone guidelines will include.
New Jersey’s new law directs the state Department of Education to develop guidelines that “at a minimum” will prohibit non-academic use of cellphones or social media during classroom instruction, according to the bill summary.
The new state guidelines will apply to students in kindergarten through 12th grade during regular school hours. It will also direct school districts on how to handle cellphone and social media use on school buses and at school-sanctioned events.
School boards will be required under the new law to adopt policies consistent with the guidelines, but will be allowed to apply for exemptions.
The law says there can be exemptions to cellphone bans in classrooms when students provide documentation from a healthcare professional that full cellphone access is necessary for their health and well-being.
The current cellphone policies and punishments vary widely by school district. Some require students to keep their phones off and out of sight, while others provide locations for the devices to be stored during the school day.
Murphy signed the new cellphone law three weeks after the state Department of Education awarded $980,000 to 86 districts, including 15 charter schools, to help implement policies banning cellphones and other electronic devices during the entire school day for students in grades 6 through 12.
The grants were awarded as part of the state’s new Phone-Free Schools Grant Program announced Oct. 1.
The new law comes as some school districts in New Jersey have recently adopted cellphone policies and other districts are reviewing changes.
The Toms River Regional Board of Education voted 7-0 on Dec. 17 to prohibit personal use of electronic communications devices on school grounds during the academic day, including during activities and programs taking place before or after classes.
The school board in Jersey City, New Jersey’s second-largest city, approved a policy prohibiting cellphones in classrooms three weeks after students returned to school in September.