Columbia Public Schools students are grappling with the new cellphone usage ban that Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed into law in July.
The law prohibits cellphone use across K-12 education. Many school districts already had phone bans in place, but the new law requires more restrictions, including no cellphone use in hallways, during lunch and study halls.
Noelle Gilzow is the president of the Columbia chapter of the Missouri National Education Association and a biology teacher at Hickman High School. Columbia Public Schools already had a cellphone ban in place since last school year. Gilzow said students have been abiding by the ban for the first few weeks of school, but their adherence to the policy is starting to wane.
That waning in adherence is typical around this time of year, but Gilzow said students aren’t fully aware that the ban is not just a school-specific preference.
“So now I think teachers are going to have to start saying, ‘You know, the law says and policy says you can't have a cell phone in the classroom, so that needs to go away,’” Gilzow said.
Moberly Public Schools has banned cell phone use in school since the 2022-23 school year. Superintendent Christina Wright said this helped students stay focused on learning by lessening distractions.
