School cellphone bans spread across states, though enforcement could be tricky

by Robbie Sequeira, Alabama Reflector
February 24, 2025

Across the country, state lawmakers are finding rare bipartisan ground on an increasingly urgent issue for educators and parents: banning cellphone use in schools.

Fueling these bans is growing research on the harmful effects of smartphone and social media use on the mental health and academic achievement of grade to high school students.

In 2024, at least eight states — California, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia — either expanded or adopted policies or laws to curtail cellphone use in schools.

This year, lawmakers in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin have proposed bans moving in their state legislatures.

Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week signed a law requiring schools to ban students’ access to cellphones and other personal electronic devices during the school day.

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds introduced a broader electronics device ban this year.

Last month, New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled her plans to ban smartphones at schools.

And last week, Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker proposed a statewide ban on cellphones in classrooms.

Some experts warn, however, that these bans might be difficult to enforce — or may simply be outdated before they even take effect.

“The genie is out of the bottle, and squeezing it back in is going to be nearly impossible,” said Ken Trump, a longtime school safety expert and president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm. “Phones and social media have fundamentally changed society, and by extension, schooling. Outright bans may be unrealistic or difficult to enforce effectively.”

Trump thinks governors, in particular, are responding to a trend rather than conducting thorough research. “Our elected officials are running to say, ‘he [introduced a bill] so I’m going to do it too.’ … Once Florida passed their bill, it’s been an explosion.”

Florida in 2023 became the first state to enact an outright ban on cellphone use during instructional time, followed by Louisiana and South Carolina last year. Other states, including Alaska and Connecticut, issued recommendations rather than mandates, encouraging local districts to develop their own policies.

In Minnesota, districts are required to implement their own policies under the law passed last year. But a bill sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Alice Mann would ban cellphones and smartwatches in elementary and middle schools, and restrict the use of those devices in high school classrooms beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.

Mann began considering the measure after hearing directly from students last year.

“We had a committee hearing where kids told us how distracting cellphones were. That really caught our attention,” she said. “We talked to school districts across the state — some had no policy, some had bans for one or two years, and some had bans for longer. The ones with bans all said the same thing: ‘It’s been wonderful.’”

Enforcement

Even where bans exist, enforcement varies widely. Some schools use Yondr pouches, lockable sleeves that prevent phone access during the school day. Others require students to store their phones in lockers or classroom pouches, while some schools rely on simple classroom rules prohibiting phone use.

According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of U.S. high school teachers say that cellphone distraction is a major issue in their classrooms. While many teachers and administrators report positive changes after bans, students have quickly adapted, finding ways to bypass rules by slipping calculators or dummy phones into pouches, or switching to smartwatches to check social media and send texts.

“Students are more tech-savvy than lawmakers,” said Trump, the school safety expert. “They find workarounds — whether it’s through smartwatches, Chromebooks or school Wi-Fi.”

States such as Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho and Pennsylvania allocated funding for programs that provide schools with lockable phone storage pouches, or financial rewards for districts that create their own restrictive policies.

A proposed bill in Texas would go so far as to charge students up to $30 to retrieve a phone that was confiscated for violating a cellphone ban.

Schools have wrestled with how to regulate mobile devices for decades — with bans on devices such as pagers dating back to the late 1980s. In 2024, 76% of U.S. public schools prohibited cellphones for nonacademic use, notes the National Center for Education Statistics.

Total bans?

The Girls Athletic Leadership School Los Angeles has enforced strict no-phone policies since its founding in 2017. The charter school’s no-phone policy means no usage on campus, during off-campus experiences, or even on school buses — a step beyond most phone bans.

“Cellphones present a major distraction and temptation for students,” Vanessa Garza, Girls Athletic Leadership School Los Angeles executive director and founding principal, wrote in a statement to Stateline. “This long-standing policy has allowed our students to foster deep friendships, experience enhanced learning, and regulate healthy emotions.”

Instead of top-down state mandates, Trump, the school security expert, thinks that schools should focus on reasonable restrictions and consensus-based policies that work for individual communities.

“If you try to ban phones entirely, enforcement becomes a nightmare,” he said. “What happens when kids don’t comply? Are schools going to dedicate staff just to cellphone discipline? If policies aren’t enforced consistently, they become meaningless.”

Trump said in school emergencies, students flooding 911 with calls can overwhelm emergency responders.

Mann, the Minnesota lawmaker, dismissed the idea that the pushback on phone bans is coming from students. Instead, she thinks parents are the ones most resistant to restrictions.

“Some parents are worried they won’t be able to reach their kids, but they absolutely can. If a parent needs to get in touch with their child, they can call the school, just like they always could before cellphones were in every pocket,” said Mann.

“What we’re hearing from students is that their phones are pinging in class all day long — and a lot of it is from parents. Parents texting, ‘What should we have for dinner?’ or ‘I’ll be home late.’ These are not emergencies.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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Hundreds rally in Birmingham in support of immigrant rights

by Alander Rocha, Alabama Reflector
February 22, 2025

BIRMINGHAM — Nine-year-old Callan Medina joined his parents and at least 500 immigrants and supporters in Birmingham Saturday for a simple reason. 

“They like it here,” Medina said.

The protest at Railroad Park in support of immigrants comes as the Trump administration is moving to rapidly deport those without legal status and as the Alabama Legislature has advanced several bills targeting immigrants in the 2025 session.

The bills would ban driver’s licenses from at least two states issued to migrants in the country without permission; ban transporting immigrants without status into Alabama and require law enforcement to collect DNA and fingerprints from detained migrants. 

Another bill would allow law enforcement to hold someone they suspect is in the country without permission in custody for up to 48 hours until they verify their legal status with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Alabama’s immigrant communities are small compared to the rest of the country. According to the U.S. Census, only 4% of the state’s population is foreign-born. In the United States as a whole, 14.3% of the population was born in another country.

People started trickling in the park entrance around 1 p.m., but quickly picked up within an hour, with hundreds of people, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder so they could hear the speakers, showing up before the crowd marched up and down 1st Avenue in downtown Birmingham. As they marched, the crowd chanted, “Say it loud and say it clear, immigrants are welcomed here,” and “The people united, will never be divided.”

Isabella Roque, a 14-year-old from Birmingham, said she was here “to fight for everyone who doesn’t have a voice,” like her “tios” and “tias,” or uncles and aunts. She said she hopes people understand that different people have different stories, and that “you never know what every person is going through.”

“I hope that we make people realize what they’re doing is wrong, and that America was built off Black and brown [people], and that they realize basically what they’re doing is wrong,” Roque said.

The protest was organized by young college students, who said they feel they not only have the feel like its up to them to organize because so many people in the community are “voiceless.”

Isabella Castro, a University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) student and one of the organizers said to the crowd that she stood in there “recognizing her privilege” of advocating, but also the privilege to work and go to school.

“Dignity and human rights are not only privileges granted to some, but they are a birthright to every individual,” she said.

Miguel Luna, a University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) and one of the organizers, said in a speech that they were there to fight for all immigrants, from DACA students who may feel uncertainty about their status to those fleeing violence in their home countries, and to remind lawmakers that they are united and and their voice “can and will make a difference.”

Luna said he was there to “demand” leaders in Birmingham, Alabama and the U.S. recognize the contribution of the immigrant community and work towards creating a path to citizenship.

“[My parents] came here like so many others, with dreams of a better future, not just for themselves, but for their children, for their families and for the generations to come. They have worked tirelessly, tirelessly, contributing to this country in ways that are often unseen yet invaluable,” Luna said.

He added immigrants have built homes, raised families, paid taxes and “enriched our communities with their cultures, labor and their resilience.”

“Yet, despite their sacrifices, despite their contributions, immigrants in this country, our families, our friends, our neighbors, are constantly under attack, policies are being written not to uplift them, but to push them into the shadows,” Luna said.

Castro and Luna are also plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit against a state law barring public funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

Juan Manuel Garcia, a Birmingham resident who immigrated with his wife from Mexico nearly 30 years ago, said that after President Donald Trump came into office, it’s been a different way of living each day.

“We try to live today because we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. So, everyone is very worried. It’s depressing. It’s sad. Too many emotions,” Garcia said in an interview, which was conducted in Spanish.

He said that they are here in search of the “American dream” and for a better future.

“If we’re here, it’s because we want a future for our families, especially our children, my wife,” he said.

This story was updated at 7:29 p.m. to correct Callan Medina’s first name.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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Election officials blast Trump’s ‘retreat’ from protecting voting against foreign threats

by Matt Vasilogambros, Alabama Reflector
February 22, 2025

The Trump administration has begun dismantling the nation’s defenses against foreign interference in voting, a sweeping retreat that has alarmed state and local election officials.

The administration is shuttering the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and last week cut more than 100 positions at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. President Donald Trump signed the law creating the agency in 2018. Among its goals is helping state and local officials protect voting systems.

Secretaries of state and municipal clerks fear those moves could expose voter registration databases and other critical election systems to hacking — and put the lives of election officials at risk.

In Pennsylvania, Republican Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said states need federal help to safeguard elections from foreign and domestic bad actors.

“It is foolish and inefficient to think that states should each pursue this on their own,” he told Stateline. “The adversaries that we might encounter in Pennsylvania are very likely the same ones they’ll encounter in Michigan and Georgia and Arizona.”

Officials from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, and other federal agencies were notably absent from the National Association of Secretaries of State winter meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Those same federal partners have for the past seven years provided hacking testing of election systems, evaluated the physical security of election offices, and conducted exercises to prepare local officials for Election Day crises, among other services for states that wanted them.

But the Trump administration thinks those services have gone too far.

In a Feb. 5 memo, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the administration is dismantling the FBI’s task force “to free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.” The task force was launched in 2017 by then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump nominee.

In her confirmation hearing last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said CISA has “gotten far off-mission.” She added, “They’re using their resources in ways that was never intended.” While the agency should protect the nation’s critical infrastructure, its work combating disinformation was a step too far, she said.

This echoes the language from the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 document, which has driven much of the Trump administration’s policies. “The Left has weaponized [CISA] to censor speech and affect elections at the expense of securing the cyber domain and critical infrastructure,” it says.

But there is a direct correlation between pervasive election disinformation and political violence, election officials warn.

Federal officials led the investigations into the roughly 20 death threats that Colorado Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold has received over the past 18 months, Griswold said. Federal and Colorado officials also collaborated on social media disinformation and mass phishing scams.

“Trump is making it easier for foreign adversaries to attack our elections and our democracy,” Griswold said in an interview. “He incites all this violence, he has attacked our election system, and now he is using the federal government to weaken us.”

Colorado could turn to private vendors to, for example, probe systems to look for weaknesses, she said. But the state would be hard-pressed to duplicate the training, testing and intelligence of its federal partners.

Some election leaders aren’t worried, however.

“Kentucky has no scheduled elections in 2025, and we have no immediate concerns pending reorganization of this agency,” Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams told Stateline in an email.

Elections under attack

Since the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign, the federal government has recognized that it overlooked security risks in the election system, said Derek Tisler, a counsel in the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center, a left-leaning pro-democracy institute.

Further, he said, the feds realized that election officials working in 10,000 local offices could not be frontline national security experts. On their own, local officials are incapable of addressing bigger security risks or spotting a coordinated attack across several states, Tisler said.

Much of the federal expertise and training came through CISA, Tisler said.

“Foreign interferers are not generally looking to interfere in Illinois’ elections or in Texas’ elections; they are looking to interfere in American elections,” he said. “A threat anywhere impacts all states. It’s important that information is not confined to state lines.”

During November’s presidential election, polling places in several states received bomb threats that were traced back to Russia. Ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington were lit on fire, and videos falsely depicting election workers destroying ballots circulated widely.

The fact that these attacks have not had a meaningful impact on the outcomes of elections may be due to the amount of preparation and training that came from federal assistance in recent years, said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat.

Indeed, the right-leaning Foundation for Defense of Democracies praised the collaboration between federal and state and local partners on election security for dampening the impact of foreign interference in the presidential election, finding that adversaries did not “significantly” influence the results.

When Bellows took office in 2021, federal national security officials led state officials in emergency response training. After Bellows completed the training, she insisted that her state’s clerks, local emergency responders and law enforcement officers participate as well.

In addition, Maine coordinated with the FBI to provide de-escalation training to local clerks, to teach them how to prevent situations, such as a disruption from a belligerent voter, from getting out of hand. In 2022, CISA officials traveled to towns and cities across the state to assess the physical security of polling places and clerks’ offices.

Bellows said she’s most grateful for the federal help she got last year when she received a deluge of death threats, members of her family were doxed, and her home was swatted.

“I am deeply concerned that what is happening is actually gutting the election security infrastructure that exists and a tremendous amount of knowledge and expertise in the name of this political fight,” she told Stateline.

In Ingham County, Michigan, Clerk Barb Byrum last year invited two federal officials to come to her courthouse office southeast of Lansing to assess its physical security. Byrum got county funding to make improvements, including adding security cameras and a ballistic film on the windows of her office.

“The federal support is going to be missed,” she said. “It seems as though the Trump administration is doing everything it can to encourage foreign interference in our elections. We must remain vigilant.”

Scott McDonell, clerk for Dane County, Wisconsin, used to talk to Department of Homeland Security officials frequently to identify cybersecurity threats, including vulnerabilities in certain software or alerts about other attacks throughout the country. Losing that support could incentivize more interference, he said.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” he said. “How can you expect someone like me, here in Dane County, to be able to deal with something like that?”

States fill the gap

Local election officials are nervous and uncertain about the federal election security cuts, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that works with state and local election officials to keep voting systems secure.

The threat landscape for elections is “extreme,” she said. And even though it’s not a major election year, quieter times are when election offices can prepare and perfect their practices, she said.

“It is a retreat and it’s a really ill-advised one,” she said. “It’s a little bit like saying the bank has a slow day on Tuesday, we’re going to let our security guards go home.”

With a federal exodus, there will be a real need for states to offer these sorts of programs and assistance, said Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer at the National Association of Election Officials, which trains and supports local officials.

“There’s going to be a big gap there for the states to try and fill,” she said. “Some of them might be sophisticated enough to be able to do some of it, but I think there’s going to be some real disparate application across the country of who’s going to be able to fill in those gaps.”

Bill Ekblad, Minnesota’s election security navigator, has leaned on the feds to learn the ropes of election security and potential threats, help him assist local election offices with better cyber practices and keep officials throughout the state updated with the latest phishing attempts.

He finds it disheartening to see the federal government stepping back, and worries that he won’t have access to intelligence about foreign threats. But after five years of working with the federal government, he is hopeful that his state has built resiliency.

“We have come a long way,” he said. “We will be able to move forward with or without the partnerships we’ve enjoyed in the past.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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