Several petitions on change.org are seeking public support to change the state’s new law that prohibits students from having cell phones in classrooms. One of them comes from a Walker High freshman.
Proponents of the ban say phones distract students in the classroom and cause unnecessary interruptions, but Emma Grace Hodge of Walker says the ban, which was signed into law last month, is unnecessary since students know when they shouldn’t be on their phones. She says her petition is calling for cell phone use during free time, not class time.
“All the students do understand that we’re not supposed to have it [a cell phone] out during class time because that is our learning time, and we don’t want to take that away, you know, that learning time away,” she explains.
Hodge says it’s unfair that teachers can have their phones but not students. Additionally, she says, students in the past could use their phones during non-class time with little to no issue, and she thinks it’s not fair to add regulations to what is supposed to be free time.
“During lunch, like before the new school year happened, like at lunch and while you’re switching to different classes, you were allowed to have it out because that’s your free time and you were allowed to do whatever,” she says.
There are no exceptions to the school cell phone ban, meaning anyone who needs to contact a student during school hours would have to go through the school. Hodge says this creates an unnecessarily complicated system, as there’s usually a delay between when schools get calls and when they alert students.
“It [the school] takes action after, like, five minutes of them [parents] calling,” she says. “Whereas if you can have your phone, then it would be a quicker source for them [parents] to get ahold of you.”
You can find Hodge’s petition by clicking here. Hodge says she started the petition for her school, hence the Walker-specific title, but she’s since expanded the cause — and her petition — to all of Livingston Parish.
Other popular petitions include “Allow Cellphones in Louisiana Schools During Free Time” and “Reinstate Cell Phone Privileges in Louisiana High Schools.”
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