Minnesota schools answer principals’ calls to ban cellphones in classrooms

Students in more Minnesota schools will be asked to ditch their cellphones before entering class this fall, as more districts join the movement to limit distractions, boost learning and improve kids’ mental health.

South Washington County, Rochester, Austin and Wayzata are among the school systems embracing recent guidance from the state’s elementary and secondary principals to have students put their devices “away for the day.”

Teacher Tracy Byrd of Washburn High School in Minneapolis said that strategy has paid off in his classroom in recent years, but comes with some challenges as students adjust.

“You know how adolescents are,” said Byrd, the 2024 Minnesota Teacher of the Year. “They’re figuring, ‘How far can I push this?’ And they walk it back from there.”

The summer rush to phone-free schools has been driven by a new state law requiring districts to establish cellphone policies by March 15, 2025. Some have opted not to wait and have adopted stiff rules offering little flexibility beyond allowing high schoolers to use their phones between classes and at lunch.

Research shows limiting cellphone access can benefit mental health and learning. Nationally, 72% of high school teachers said students being distracted by phones was a “major problem” in classrooms, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina have enacted or are moving toward statewide bans on cellphones during the day. Eight other states, including Minnesota, are urging local districts to adopt restrictive policies.

St. Paul Public Schools now leaves it to individual schools to set their own rules. At Highland Park Senior High School, Principal Winston Tucker and his team have taken aim at the device’s addictive qualities and spelled out their rationale in the school’s summary of cellphone use expectations: “This generation of students is struggling to learn to think and stay busy with just their own thoughts. Managing boredom without tools or toys is an important life skill that we have little opportunity to practice when the phone is always present.”

At Hopkins High School, senior Dallas Downey, a student council member, theater actor and president of the Hopkins Black Student Alliance, said battling boredom is one of many reasons to have a cellphone. He works at the Legal Rights Center teaching young people their rights when interacting with police. Like other students, he has places to go after school, he said, and feels obliged to reply while in school to the latest rumors or reports that may surface on the Hopkins parents’ Facebook page.

“Obviously, we are there to learn, but sometimes there’s downtime in class,” Downey said. “I focus on what I need to do. Self-regulation is important, and I can self-regulate.”

Austin students who responded to a school district survey showed little appetite for a cellphone ban, with just 10% saying the devices shouldn’t be allowed in class, compared with 51% of parents and 81% of staff members.

This year’s legislation requiring Minnesota districts to set cellphone policies also directed the state’s elementary and secondary school principals’ associations to provide a range of best practices to guide their thinking. The resulting “tool kit,” in the hands of more 2,200 principals by the end of July, suggests that all classrooms be phone-free with few exceptions,

“I think that every school has had a policy around cellphones or some guidelines,” said Bob Driver, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals. “We are just taking this to a level of trying to build consistency around the state.”

Anna Tierney, the mother of two daughters in the Bloomington Public Schools who spoke at a recent legislative roundtable on cellphones at school, said districts must keep in mind that “younger children in elementary and middle schools have different developmental needs compared to high schoolers.”

The rules being put in place of late are, indeed, stricter at the elementary and middle school levels.

Rich Updegrove, a social studies teacher at Duluth East High School, said that a year ago his district instructed students to turn off their phones and put them in their lockers or backpacks. But in the end, he said, “it was very clear they were carrying them throughout the day.”

Updegrove has mixed feelings about bans. He said he would prefer students have phones and learn to use them responsibly. He worries that those who are being harassed, and who could use their cameras to document such incidents, may feel less safe without them. But he also sees fewer students with phones out in class.

At Washburn, Byrd said he will “bag and tag” phones the first time he catches students using them, and return them to the kids at the end of the day. The second time, the student will have to talk to their dean. If the problem persists, parents will have to go to school each time to retrieve the phone.

He has engaged in some light banter, too. If students ask about emergency calls from parents, Byrd replies: “They can call the office. We lived for years without these.”

Look up answers to questions? “We’ve given you a district Chromebook.” Check the time? “There’s a clock right here on the wall,” Byrd says.

“For the most part, it’s been pretty good,” Byrd said of the phone-free climate. “We know who the frequent fliers are with their phones, but it’s not a large number by any stretch of the imagination.”

Still, Byrd looks forward to the day when middle school students arrive at high school accustomed to putting away their phones. As a ninth-grade English language arts teacher, he said, it will make his life easier.