A major change to schools is spreading across America – here’s what it would mean for your child
Pennsylvania is the first state to pilot a program that locks away students’ cell phones during the school day.
Republican Sen. Ryan Aument, 47, of the Pennsylvania State Senate, sponsored the bill, citing concerns that smartphones are a major distraction to students’ learning and are negatively impacting their mental health.
The Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee has now approved a pilot grant program that will provide certain schools with secure, lockable bags in which students’ cell phones can be stored until the end of the day.
The proposed grant program would also provide lockers for education workers to store smartphones.
Republican Sen. Ryan Aument, 47, of the Pennsylvania Senate sponsored a bill that would lock students’ cellphones during the school day
The program will be followed for two years before a decision is made whether to expand the program to other schools in the state
The proposed legislation also provided for a performance assessment of the mobile storage plan, monitoring students’ academic performance and mental health for two years to see how effective the program is.
“I can’t think of any other issue that I’ve worked on in the 14 years that I’ve been here that has had as much resonance as this,” Aument said this week during a Senate Education Committee hearing.
‘I think it is extremely important that we free our children from these devices for six and a half hours per school day. The response from parents and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive,” he said.
“There is compelling data and research that points to the decline in students’ mental health and students’ academic performance, students’ physical health, and a direct correlation and strong evidence of direct causation with the rise of smartphone access among adolescents and social media access among adolescents,” Aument said.
The company Yondr has made $2.5 million in eight years selling lock bags made specifically for cell phones to state governments and is now promoting its product to schools
According to the Pew Research Center, the average teen spent about three and a half hours a day on social media in 2023 and this is detrimental to their mental health
According to the Pew Research Center, the average teenager spent about three and a half hours a day on social media in 2023.
According to high school teacher Justin Neideigh, limiting students’ use of cell phones has a positive effect.
“Bullying, cyberbullying, sexting, all those TikTok trends, all those things that were never discussed in the classroom before are now,” Neideigh said. WGAL.
The bill requires the School Safety and Security Committee of the Pennsylvania Crime and Delinquency Commission to allocate funds to select schools that participate in the program.
Following the mandatory performance review two years later, the commission would prepare a report for the Governor and General Assembly, who would then make a decision on whether to expand the program to a wider reach of students.
Last week, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy took to social media platforms to enforce an immediate warning label, similar to cigarette pack warnings mandated by Congress in the 1960s.
Once the legislation is reviewed by the full Senate, the findings could be included in the next state budget.
Last week, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy takes to social media platforms to enforce an immediate warning label – similar to cigarette pack warnings mandated by Congress in the 1960s.
“The youth mental health crisis is an emergency – and social media has emerged as a major contributor,” Murthy wrote in a New York Times opinion monday.