Pennsylvania School Cell Phone Ban: What Parents and Students Need to Know

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Welcome back, everybody, to the Now We Defend podcast. This week we are going to talk about the very recent just to drop Bell to Bell School cell phone band that just went into effect in Pennsylvania.

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It was signed into law by Governor Shapiro, just on the 26th of October this week. So we want to go through this this week because we understand that parents out there probably have a lot of questions and concerns. Students probably also maybe even school administrators. I’m sure teachers have, questions about what is this law actually require, when does it take effect?

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And what happens if a student or a parent or somebody in the school refuses to comply with this law? So the nuts and bolts of it are, that, first of all, Pennsylvania is not the first state to do this. Guys, we are actually the 25th state to do this in the United States. So there’s now half of states now have a Bell to Bell School cell phone ban with Pennsylvania joining in the group.

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Now does that mean your kid can’t send a text at lunch anymore? Can’t check in? What happens if they refuse to put their phone away? Or what happens if they are secretly using their phone? And what’s the fallout and who enforces it? So there’s a lot of questions that come with this. And this is a big deal because it’s a hot button topic.

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You know, this intersects with a lot of different areas, you know, parental rights. Student discipline, school safety, privacy rights, special education when you’re dealing with IEPs and 504 plans and also the government’s authority to regulate or the overreach that might be done with this. So the law has been signed. This does not mean, though, that immediately every student needs to surrender their cell phone immediately at the door when they walk into school yet.

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But Pennsylvania schools are going to have to adopt compliance policies to comply with this, and that is to be in effect and beginning as of the 2027, 2028 school year. So next school year, this will have to be in full force, in effect in every school in the state of Pennsylvania. And the only other thing I want to mention before jumping over here to Justin is that the first question I thought of when I heard about this was, what about smartphones?

00:02:39:27 – 00:03:06:21

And what about cell phone watches? What about tablets? What about, you know, anything that really could be any sort of mobile device that we now have on our risks, on our bodies, around us at all times. And it’s not a workaround, guys. The law addresses this as mobile devices. So it’s not merely just a cell phone. This includes any sort of mobile device that can be used in that capacity.

00:03:06:22 – 00:03:26:09

So you’re not going to be able to get away with still sending text messages on your watch and that type of thing. So Justin, I’m going to pop over to you first here. Does this ban on cell phones cover every educational setting? Like what educational settings are actually covered? Because initially I thought, okay, this is probably just public schools, right?

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Like because when you reach beyond public schools, you get into like even further regulation and possibly overreach. But unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it’s not just public schools. So tell us, where does this reach to? Yep. So when I first heard this, you know, your bell to bell. So essentially I thought kindergartens, grade schools, high schools. Colleges and universities to my understanding, are not covered.

00:03:51:05 – 00:04:20:17

But, we’ll say up to high school, you have public schools, charter schools, cyber charter schools, which it’s kind of interesting. Yeah. And I, I’m actually kind of interested on how. I guess that means when you’re on the computer screen, if a teacher sees you, like, on your cell phone, that you could get in trouble, maybe. I’m not sure how that would work exactly, but I think there’s going to be a lot of, things that come out over the first couple of months of this that, you know, maybe initially weren’t thought of when coming up with a bill and just like anything.

00:04:20:18 – 00:04:34:02

Yeah, there’s going to be a learning curve. And I think we’re going to see schools doing this very differently, even just across a county like, you know, with multiple districts like York County, where we’re at, we probably have I don’t even know how many districts you want to look that stat up to him. Do you do you know what that stat is?

00:04:34:03 – 00:04:53:27

I do not. Okay, look that up. Do you like. How do you like how my cell phone went off during your introduction there? Yeah, yeah. Did you find it distracting? Go figure. Yeah, yeah. Highly distracted. Yeah, yeah. But so, like I said, public schools, charter schools, cyber charter schools, intermediate units, career in tech schools and private schools.

00:04:53:28 – 00:05:07:22

So pretty much every type of school you can think of, you said kindergarten if you have a cell phone, at kindergarten, if you gave your kid a cell phone as a parent, you screwed up. Well, you should not be given your kid in kindergarten a cell phone, I don’t think. I mean, I’m not here to give parenting advice.

00:05:07:23 – 00:05:27:10

I would tend to agree. There’s 16. I think that’s kind of ridiculous. Well, and sorry, Tim was 16 districts in New York, by the way, 16 school districts. So just in York County, guys, there’s 16 different school districts. And I bet you every 16 of them, every one of the 16 does this a little bit differently. And I think there’s going to be a coming to the center of at some point here, as you were saying, Justin.

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But did you want to add something to my talk about kindergartners? Well, we were saying the law addresses mobile devices. So think about kids out there that have tablets. Yeah, for sure. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I think about. Yeah. And you’re right about that. I think about like my son Bennett, who is eight and he just got this year.

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We gave him a little watch that has the ability to actually send text messages. We only give it to him at ice hockey practice, that we don’t let him where it all the time, because we need him to text if anything’s going on there because we’re not sitting there all the time. But yeah, I mean, but like, do any of you guys disagree with me that a kindergarten should not have a cell phone?

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No, I would I would even go further. I mean, I think that most kids don’t need cell phones, including up to up to their teenage years. I mean, I think once, once you have a kid that starts driving, then I think you have you have, I think a legitimate reason. I mean, yeah, and for sure, the driving thing, I mean, I got my first little flip phone when I was 16, when I got a car, I had a go phone that they, that my parents gave me and my sister, my older sister, because we were involved in like after school activities.

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So for like transportation and stuff that like at that point then, you know, it makes sense. There’s an actual need for communication at that. Yeah. And I do think, Tim, you have younger children, that probably none of them have cell phones yet would be my guest. I mean, they’re not gonna have cell phones until they’re nearly adults. All right.

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My kids are maybe, like a five, six, seven, eight, nine years ahead of your kids. But we did get our kids. Well, some of them, the older ones, cell phones already, and none of them are 16 yet. You know, like my son Lincoln, who’s 14, and my daughter Hayley, who is 12. They both have cell phones and we gave it to him because of all those extracurriculars.

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Right. Like all those things where they got to call us. Hey, dad, they ended early. Can you come pick me up like that type of stuff? Yeah. I mean, I’m not going to hide the ball. I totally agree with this. Frankly, I think this was overdue when I, when I was in school. There were cell phone prohibitions because it was becoming more common.

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Yeah. With the advent of smartphones especially. And, my mother actually works in the school district where I graduated from, and she actually told me that after shortly after I left in the years after that, that the school had relaxed a lot of its policies to the point where it was allowing kids to they were allowing kids to use phones, like during study halls and stuff, which is kind of crazy because the learning institutions, by definition, are supposed to be a place where the sole objective is you’re educating kids.

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And when you give kids a cell phone in that environment, by definition you are giving them a link to the outside world, which is counterproductive to the idea of educating them in that facility. And it is a distraction. And we have clients, a lot of juvenile clients who are getting themselves into tremendous amounts of trouble by using cell phones in school in various ways.

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It has become a it has become a problem. And I’ll go even further and say that just to your point to that the reason the government has stepped in here is because the schools and the parents were not doing an adequate job of addressing this issue. That’s why the government got involved with this. Yeah. Well, I agree with you on that.

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I also agree with you that they may have been trying, but they lost control. Sure. You know, I do think it became too big of an issue that they couldn’t manage it and it was too many different scenarios. And I think the government, in an ideal situation would not need to pass a law like this would not would keep its nose out of it, but it has become a problem that’s big enough that the government felt the need to act and other states have felt similarly.

00:08:55:29 – 00:09:22:23

Yeah, I remember when I was prepping this outline for today. I talked to Levi about it a little bit, and actually, Levi, our producer, gave us the idea for this, so props Levi for that. Thank you. But, I was talking to him about when I was in high school, which was in 1998 through 2002. We actually again, this was like the advent of like, I was probably like one of the very first generations of kids that actually had a cell phone.

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It was like a flip phone in, like the high school years. And my school, which was Central York High School here in New York County. Actually banned our ability to bring our cell phones into the school at that time. Right. And back then, I mean, you couldn’t even get on the internet on your cell phone. You could barely get on the internet.

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On a computer. I mean, you could, but it was like DSL. Ding ding ding. Like all that logging and stuff to send a text message. It costs $0.10. Like it was that that era. And what I saw is I saw kids actually cheating, using their cell phones. Right. Logging information in, like, their cell phones, even though it was really rudimentary.

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I see I actually saw kids when they couldn’t get it in their cell phone. You know, where they would put it in their graphing calculator. Guilty of that, actually. So, they would put like, little notes in there. There. Yeah. We would have these graphing calculators and there was a little notes area where you could like put information and you’d have it out during a test and you look like you were on your calculator and boom, you just look at your notes app and.

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Well, I mean, you had information there that you shouldn’t have had. Everybody was doing it. It was it was pervasive. But yeah, I mean the school did that. And then fast forward maybe even a few years after I graduated, everybody had a cell phone. Everybody was bringing in a school. The ban was gone. They lost control. And it was just outrageous.

00:10:36:20 – 00:10:59:09

You know, I remember being in so I was in high school, what, 2006 to 2010. And like you just said, I, I think both Tim Knox you’re you’re younger than me. I think I think that sounds like 2010. Yeah. So we’re the same age, but I remember being maybe eighth grade ish right before high school. I got one of my mom’s old cell phones that was like that old Nokia brick.

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I had like snake on it. And literally I had my mom’s phone number, my dad’s phone number. I think like both of my grandparents numbers in there and like, that was it. And then the iPhone came out. I remember that there were a couple other, like, smarter phones. I think when I was maybe a sophomore, and that’s when I started noticing and I started having, like a cell phone in school.

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But, I mean, they were pretty strict with that where I went to school. If you had yourself out, like, they would take it, you know, for the class, if you got caught multiple times, you’d go to the principal’s office. You get at the end of the day. But just it’s so different from, you know, ten, 15 years ago when, you know, we were in high school or finishing up high school, to now, where just every single kid has a device.

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Everybody’s so connected to the social media stuff. So, like Tim said, I think they just kind of got away from being able to control it. Yeah. And I mean, obviously too, I think a lot of parents nowadays, especially with younger kids, it’s a lot different than it was like when we were younger and how our parents were, I don’t know.

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I just feel like people don’t take it as seriously because it’s just been a part of their lives for so long. Whereas like when they were first starting to come to the masses, we’ll say, you know, people didn’t know as much, they couldn’t do as much. So yeah, I, I just think the view on it for a lot of parents have changed.

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And rather than, you know, them being that point of discipline and taking that device away from their kid, they put it on the schools and then the schools, there was just nobody regulated. Yeah. You have two you have two entities that are looking at each other going, it’s your job to fix this. You know what I mean?

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The schools saying it’s the parents job. The parents are saying, well, they’re in the school all day, so why can’t the school deal with it? But I mean, the reality is, I would imagine that we are going to get a fair amount of comments, even on this episode, of people that are against this, because there’s always an emergency, in theory, for a kid to have a cell phone.

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Yeah. The reality is there’s not always an emergency. The number of situations where a kid would actually need to have a cell phone to make emergency contact with somebody in a way that is not accessible through the school normally, anyway, is definitely the minority of situations. So, let’s set aside the hysterics and the, you know, the distracting, the distractions in the conversation and acknowledge that in the vast majority of settings in a school system, kids do not need a cell phone for any reason.

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They don’t need it. And we all are evidence of that. We made it through school. We we went through it. We didn’t have cell phones for much of our time in school. It can be done. And while it’s not the same thing that the bill is addressing, we live in a time now where, just as Justin alluded to, a lot of people, there’s no regulation at at all of what their kids are doing with their devices.

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You go out into public, you sit down to eat with your family, you enjoy a family meal and the family interaction, which used to be very common. But you can look at the other tables and what are the kids at the other tables doing? They’re playing on devices. Yeah. So you know, like that’s and there are tons of studies that are coming out that show how that is problematic in the development of children.

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So, you know, the people who act like kids have to be constantly tethered to electronic devices. They’re not really on the side of science or, you know, any kind of like social betterment for the kid. They are they’re kind of stunting the development of kids in some way. So I think in the end, this is going to be remembered as a good thing.

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Well, people look back on it and they’ll say, we’re not worse off for this law going into effect. Yeah, I agree with you, Tim, on that point. And we are during this episode, going to unpack the arguments for both sides, right? Because there are legitimate points on both sides. And we all recognize that, just because we may hold one opinion versus another, there are definitely legitimate, reasonable arguments on both sides.

00:14:51:12 – 00:15:09:15

But I do agree overall, it’s probably going to be good for our youth, as they go through school for next number of years. I did want to bring back to one point, Tim, that you discussed, and I do want to actually talk to you guys about this. And I want parents out there to hear me on this.

00:15:09:17 – 00:15:41:21

Tim earlier said that we see a lot of juvenile cases where I would say the majority actually, of juvenile cases that we now have involve a cell phone or involve some part of a cell phone being involved in the incident, and that has caused a lot of children, which again, their brains are not fully developed, they are not fully aware of consequences that can happen or follow them for their entire lives, potentially depending on what it is.

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They are not aware of that, that risk. And it was a risk that we as their parents at this point, you know, I was age, we never had to deal with that risk. We were never in a situation where it was even possible for us to be at that risk, like our current children are. And as an attorney who sees this on a regular basis, I actually have a case going on right now, just this week.

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Which involves a cell phone and in incident happened involving school and people and peers, etc. and it’s very serious and could be criminal. We’re trying to kind of limit the exposure, but it’s a risk. And you need to hear me on this. Parents like you need to talk to your kids, even though it’s awkward, especially about sexting, when they are at least in high school, but probably before that in middle school.

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And I know that is an awkward discussion to have with your kids. But guys, we are seeing this on a daily basis here, and we are. What those children are doing is they are creating child pornography. And the moment it gets out into the ether, it is uncontrollable and it spreads like wildfire. And these children are being posted on the internet because they sent a picture of themselves to a girlfriend that they then broke up with.

00:17:00:06 – 00:17:33:27

But then she showed it to her friend, who then sent it somewhere else. And now before you know it, it’s wildfire. So please, I would consider I mean obviously parent how you want, but I would really ask that you consider having a sit down eye to eye, not through messaging discussion with your children about using their devices and the significant amount of exposure criminally, that that could bring upon them and actually completely change the trajectory of their lives because of 1 or 2 minor what might be viewed as minor mistakes that are actually enormously, enormously impactful in their lives.

00:17:33:28 – 00:18:00:14

And that’s a super wise admonition for parents, because a lot of parents, I think, hand a phone, which is the sum total of all human action and knowledge and social media and all this other stuff, all the information in the world that you can access is now on this device. And they hand this to a kid without any explanation or without any laying down of what the expectations for this device even are.

00:18:00:16 – 00:18:23:28

So, I mean, I think your your advice is great advice because at the very least, parents should be having a conversation with their kids about what the expectation is for how you’re going to use this device. I’m not giving you this device so that you can take pictures of somebody in the bathroom. I’m not using giving you this device so that you can have anonymous conversations with adults on a social media app.

00:18:24:00 – 00:18:47:28

You should have those conversations because kids are doing that stuff, whether you think about it or not. And I had a case just recently where, you know, to her credit, a mother discovered that her child was involved in some of this, and she locked that down when she became aware of it. She interdicted on this so hard this kid had no devices while this kid was living under his mom’s roof.

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And and that is something that I think parents need to be prepared to do that, that if this is going to be something that’s going to be a problem for your kid, you have to step in and you have to do something. Yeah. And I don’t think we need to make it a discussion where you’re you’re you’re disciplining your child or trying to make them feel lesser than or like they don’t understand.

00:19:07:23 – 00:19:33:17

But we as the adults have to take that role on and explain that to our kids because we are their guider, you know, and we are their protector. And that has to be something that we that we do for our children. You’re also paying for the device most of the vast majority of situations. So like the idea that you don’t have a right to set expectations and boundaries for how this device is going to be used for your kid is simply not true.

00:19:33:20 – 00:19:57:20

You’re the one that is ultimately in control of what your kid is doing with that device. So yeah, you should set boundaries for it because you’re the one who is who. As you said, you’re the adult in that situation. Yeah for sure. And I would again, you alluded to this, but almost take it beyond that. And you as a parent can put parental monitoring and controls and limitations on your children’s devices.

00:19:57:20 – 00:20:14:28

And you should consider doing that. I know with my children there is a standing rule that I can look in their phone, that I can go through their phone if I would ever want to. I don’t even have to ask permission to do it. And the reason we have it set that way is if they understand that, I could go look at their phone at any point.

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And trust me, I’m not going every day and looking through their phone. I don’t have time for that. But but every once in a while I do. And if that’s always that, hey, dad could and might probably will look at my phone at some point, they’re probably going to guide themselves in a way that might either try to, and I recognize this cover their tracks, but they don’t realize, I think, how much I know about this, partially because I do this for a living.

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But, there’s also a lot of apps that parents can put on their phones to monitor their kids devices that you should really consider. I know there’s a lot of parents that, for kids who are driving, they have the life 360 app that actually helps you monitor not only the phone, but the actual driving behaviors of your child.

00:20:55:21 – 00:21:17:05

So you can even take it further in making sure they’re being safe on the roadway, which is another great. And when my kids drive, you better bet your bottom dollar that’s going to be on their cell phones. So, Lincoln, it’s coming. So yeah, guys just, you know, keep that all in mind. But I do want to, get back to kind of this bell to bell ban that just went into effect.

00:21:17:05 – 00:21:40:26

So the one of the things I wanted to tell everybody with this bell to Bell ban is that it covers more guys than just classroom instruction time. It literally covers every moment you’re in school. It’s classroom instruction. It’s the lunch period. It’s your free time study hall. It’s recess for younger kids that have recess. It’s in the hallways during the passing periods between classes.

00:21:40:29 – 00:21:58:16

So it’s not like, oh, you just have to put it in your backpack. And then when you walk into your next class in high school, you can get it out and start texting people. It’s pretty much the entire school day. So let’s, let’s talk about the case for the band guys. Justin, I want to go to you for this.

00:21:58:18 – 00:22:22:04

Give me some practical, reasonable reasons that this band makes sense and should be in effect. Absolutely. So I think the biggest one, as we’ve been alluding to, throughout the episode so far, is that students should be focused on what they’re learning in school and what’s going on in the classroom, rather than, you know, getting notifications from Instagram or Facebook, etc..

00:22:22:06 – 00:22:54:06

And that follows into, you know, teachers and other students in the classroom shouldn’t be, competing with cell phones, social media notifications, etc.. For that, you know, the student’s attention, essentially. Yeah. And Justin, there is science out there that says if you are focused on a topic and you’re consistently interrupted, you’re not going to get out of that or retain the information that you should because you’re you’re you’re constantly going back and forth between things.

00:22:54:06 – 00:23:16:26

Right? So the, the the the text messages that are pervasive, the, the constant notifications on a Facebook post or whatever it might be that is, like you said, interrupting that focus, which to Tim’s point, the point of school is to learn and focus and grow your brain and grow your mind, and you’re not going to be able as effectively do that.

00:23:16:26 – 00:23:40:00

And I think children in the current generation that are in school are going to have a bit of a different way of, you know, maybe even being adults when they’re in the workforce, because I think there’s a lot you can miss. Well, I mean, if you’re exposed to this thing, we’re already seeing that. Well, yeah, we are. I was having some conversations over the last couple of months with, you know, certain friends that are in different industries.

00:23:40:05 – 00:24:00:00

And obviously we’re getting a little bit older. I’ll be well, man, 35 next year, which isn’t old by any means. But, when you think about people that are coming into the workforce, like out of college and even out of high school, you know, you have 18 to, what, 2223 year olds, who again, have just had these devices their entire lives.

00:24:00:03 – 00:24:17:18

Again, I think parenting is is much different than it was when, when we were younger. And, you know, the work ethic just isn’t there because they’re constantly on phones or, you know, the divided attention, like they you’re at work, but they’re not thinking about work. They’re like, I, you know, I only want to be here for two hours.

00:24:17:18 – 00:24:39:27

I don’t want to do this. So there’s that aspect to it. And then how about how about just the getting back to the old days of just having human face to face interactions? Well, and I was going to say without phones in the classrooms again, another thing that’s come through all the technology and more people having phones and younger kids having phones is the cyberbullying.

00:24:39:29 – 00:24:58:21

That’s become pretty pervasive over the last, you know, ten, 15 years. So getting rid of those phones, throughout the day, allowing the students to interact with their teachers more, their peers more. I mean, there’s always going to be, you know, bullies and things like that. But the cyber bullying, I think, takes it a step further because a lot of it can be anonymous.

00:24:58:23 – 00:25:21:00

And again, we’ve we’ve seen what that does to people over the last ten, 15 years, especially younger people that don’t know better. And, you know, somebody messages them, starts bullying them. And I mean, there’s documentaries on Netflix where I forget exactly where it was. Texas, maybe, don’t quote me on that. But like, a mom was cyberbullying her own daughter, like, it was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.

00:25:21:00 – 00:25:51:15

And it took, like, a few years to figure out. Like, who was doing it? And when the police actually figured out, like it was, it was this huge thing. Great documentary. I have to leave. I if you know what it is or can find that, plug that in. But then also a statewide ban allows for consistency, of the ban and the policies that they’re trying to implement across the state rather than, you know, one school has, you know, these rules or this school has those rules.

00:25:51:17 – 00:26:10:28

It allows for, again, consistency across the districts and across the state. And I think if you know people or excuse me, if the school districts, stay steadfast in it and actually follow through with what they’re supposed to do, that, like Tim said, you know, we’ll look back on this in ten, 15, 20 years and realize it was a good thing.

00:26:10:29 – 00:26:34:04

Well, and your point to saying about like, the work ethic and the focus and all that kind of stuff, that’s because a lot of what’s on your cell phone is dopamine disruption. I mean, you’re you’re your kids, especially through social media, premature or pornography consumption at really young ages. This is having profound effects on their mind because it is disrupting their dopamine regulation.

00:26:34:04 – 00:26:56:17

They’re getting quick hits, easy fixes of dopamine, and they become dysregulated. And they can become addicted to a lot of different things. It forms addictive tendencies, and it can lead to other forms of addiction, not just to a cell phone. So, I mean, you’re creating the sort of monkey brain in a person by giving them this device at a young age and just going hands off and no restrictions.

00:26:56:23 – 00:27:29:06

And another byproduct of this that bleeds into the classroom is that we’re seeing a lot of sleep disruption. Sleep deprivation, I think is one of the, one of the big issues in society currently that is not being talked about to a full extent because you have kids and I see it. I’m sure you guys have seen it in some of our cases where you have kids that are staying up until 3:00 in the morning playing video games or watching TV, or they’re on their phone texting, or they’re on social media or on YouTube or whatever till three in the morning, their sleep deprived, and their brain is giving them constant hits of dopamine off

00:27:29:06 – 00:27:53:28

of this device until three in the morning. Yeah. So that’s that’s a problem which bleeds into the classroom. So I mean, Justin and I actually see that pretty frequently in our dependency practice we do where kids are abrasive, truant and missing so much school. And a lot of times I only been your experience, but mine has been a lot of times when we get to the bottom of why they’re not getting up, it’s because they’re staying up too late.

00:27:53:28 – 00:28:14:26

They’re either playing video games. A lot of those video games, by the way, are interactive. Like like so they’re actually like having screen time interactions with people. Yeah, it’s an interactive medium by definition. Right. But not all video games. But but but a lot of them are or they’re just on their phones. They’re chatting there, you know. And I remember the good old days of AOL Instant Messenger a I am I don’t know if you guys.

00:28:14:27 – 00:28:27:20

Oh no, we were doing I had the so was it the the sidekick, the T-Mobile one that had like the flip up thing and had a m on it and oh, I didn’t even have a I am on my phone. I had it on a computer. I had it on computer. You could leave in a way that was like the first phone.

00:28:27:20 – 00:28:52:15

I think that you could actually like access it on. But at that time, T-Mobile’s service was like the worst. Yeah. So I only had that. I mean, the thing with that was, I remember being a teenager and wanting to be on an AI because it was addictive. It was interactive. Right. And was hitting my dopamine receptors, clearly, because I was getting that, that kind of social interaction at late, late at night.

00:28:52:15 – 00:29:05:27

But the thing was, I couldn’t get on. I am at night because to get on, I am. I had to log into my computer and to log into my computer. It made noises that were so loud that my parents would be like, why are you logging into the internet at like, you know, three in the morning? So I literally couldn’t do it.

00:29:05:27 – 00:29:18:28

They were like like physical barriers to it. But even during the day, I mean, it was probably it was kind of the beginning of the end in a way, like to feel like now for me, and maybe it was different for you guys, but with the a m thing, it was definitely more of like a night thing.

00:29:18:29 – 00:29:33:10

Like you said, you could have the away message after school. Yeah. So like during the day or like when it was, you know, summertime and it’s light out like you’d have an away message on, like gone to the park with friends or something. You know what I mean? So, like, we’re still going out and being out outside when you could, like, mess with your siblings.

00:29:33:10 – 00:29:45:29

I remember my sister would have an eye because only one of you could be on. I am at one time and we all had different screenings. I’d be like, I’d go and change her away message because I’d be upset she was on. I’d be like sitting on the pot, you know, like stuff like that, you know, just to just to mess with her.

00:29:46:00 – 00:30:08:17

Joy, I love you. But you remember those days? Yeah. But, that that stuff was. You couldn’t use it in school because it was on your computer at home, and we didn’t have the, like the, the computer programs in the school. So I’m blown away at, like, how little restrictions there are on school devices a lot of times because like, they, they do have tablets and computers and laptops.

00:30:08:20 – 00:30:23:22

Yeah. My kids have like laptops. We had them too. But like I remember back in the days, I mean, you know, for a long time we could get on YouTube in the school, but then they put filters and stuff in. And so you’d have to go to like a proxy in order to bypass the filter. Right. Or something.

00:30:23:23 – 00:30:45:21

There’s like this fish game I remember playing where you had to eat like little fish to make your fish, but. So you guys had laptops in high school? No, I, I did towards the end of school. Got em. We had like box computers in the school. They were. But even when we had that, a lot of times there were restrictions on things that you could or couldn’t do, like the computer itself would not let you because there were digital safeguards there to prevent you from doing stuff.

00:30:45:21 – 00:31:07:22

And I’m blown away at how little there is. I don’t know if they just gave up on that or if, it’s just futile to even do that because the ways of being around my, my two older, numerous, my three oldest kids, Lincoln, Haley and Bennett, they all have laptops and Bennett is in fourth grade, you know, and they have laptops that they bring home.

00:31:07:22 – 00:31:21:10

Now, I do check their laptops and see what they’re doing on them, and I go and look at it. I’ve never seen them on anything other than a school based program on the laptop, so I don’t think either they don’t know how to get around it or they’re not trying it. Right. But there are there are restrictions there.

00:31:21:11 – 00:31:52:24

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And I know that your kids are homeschooled, right? Yeah, yeah, we were able to get around it in our time, but I’m sure there’s ways it’s still even now. But as it’s easier to get around, they put the stuff in a place to block it. Right. You know, who knows? But, to your point of cyberbullying, I wanted to talk about that because there is something that happens with cyberbullying that is dangerous to the lives of children, and that is sextortion for any of those sextortion, if you’ve heard of that.

00:31:52:29 – 00:32:16:23

And that is where this is what kind of what I was talking about earlier. Whereas if your child sends images of themselves, you know, nude to somebody and maybe it’s somebody they know, right? But that gets into the hands of somebody else, and then that person can use that image to extort your child. And we have seen children commit suicide because they are so extorted and they don’t know how to handle that.

00:32:16:23 – 00:32:38:27

And they feel so embarrassed that they can’t handle those emotions. And that has happened multiple, multiple times across the country. You hear about it. It’s like one of the saddest things you can hear about, these children are killing themselves because they’re extorted and they’re afraid that their images are going to get out there because they initially sent it out to somebody they knew or trusted, or sometimes someone they didn’t know and thought they could trust.

00:32:38:27 – 00:33:00:05

So that’s another thing as parents like, look at your kids devices, if they are in that cycle or getting close to that, you have to intervene. You could literally be saving their lives. Okay, Tim, I’m going to go to you now because I know that this is something that you support, and I love that, but we’re lawyers, so I’m going to make you make the case for the case against the band.

00:33:00:10 – 00:33:16:17

So tell me what the reasons are for not having this band and why. And again, there are reasonable reasons out there, but I’d like you to make the case. It’s fun. Yeah. So I mean, I, I would go I’ll just say first off, at the outset I’ll go through these because I think these are the reasons that would be articulated.

00:33:16:17 – 00:33:40:10

But I’m also going to I’m going to caveat each of these, because I think inherent in each of these is an obvious flaw in logic and reasoning. I would expect nothing less. And I want you to do that. Yeah. So the first one here that we’ve laid out is that schools need flexibility. And that flexibility should be to allow a sort of, maybe a variable approach to different students, different groups, different circumstances.

00:33:40:15 – 00:34:04:17

I’m not exactly sure what people have in mind with this one. I mean, certainly we would not say that certain, you know, races of students should get greater access to phones than others, right? Definitely. So that’s clearly not the argument. Racial divide or no, that. But the argument is that in certain situations or maybe in certain schools, IEP situations, like certain populations of special education possibly.

00:34:04:18 – 00:34:24:12

Right. So I mean, if that’s the argument, then I mean, I get it. And I think that that I would concede on the point, like what we talked about at the very beginning, which we’ll talk about shortly, that there is there is a difference between banning the use of cell phones and actually, making it impossible for children to access electronic devices under any circumstance.

00:34:24:20 – 00:34:42:27

That’s a huge difference to that point. And it’s worry about very well taken. There is exceptions to that. Correct. Which we’re going to discuss in a little bit. There has to be. Yeah, there has to think that’s kind of exactly what you’re talking about. And that’s why, you know, that I understand it’s kind of this argument fails because of the exception.

00:34:42:27 – 00:35:05:19

Right. Exactly. Yeah. And there has to be those exceptions because we all I think, I don’t think it’s any stretch to comprehend situations where a child in school should have access to a cell phone, should be able to use that cell phone. But again, we’ll talk about that in a moment. The other thing that people will say is that it’s not on the government to step in and say, kids shouldn’t be using their phones.

00:35:05:20 – 00:35:23:24

Students should be able to use their phones and learn to use their phones responsibly. To that, I would say that’s true, but the place for that is at home, not in the school. So that’s how I would respond there. And to all of you, don’t tread on me folks out there that are going to respond to that comment.

00:35:23:28 – 00:35:42:06

Bring it on. We’re we’re happy to talk to you about it. You know, you’re out there. I know you are, because you respond every other time, post something and look, I mean, I’m I’m pretty. Don’t tread on me. But that’s true. You are. I’m totally fine with my kids being subjected to strict limitations because their kids.

00:35:42:10 – 00:35:56:28

And because they’re my kids and because, you know, I think we in cases like this, we know what’s best for them. I’m we’re talking about the guy that flies the flag. Oh, yeah. You know, the yellow don’t trust. Yeah. I mean, those guys don’t don’t do anything. I like the flag, man. I’m telling you on that, too.

00:35:56:28 – 00:36:11:20

But you fly the flag. It’s been a long time. And I had a I had a flag that I did fly, but it was a Navy. It’s the navy, Jack. The Gadsden flag is is derived from the navy, Jack. And since I was in the Navy, the yellow one with the snake that says, literally, that’s the Gadsden flag.

00:36:11:22 – 00:36:27:15

Okay. Yeah, but the Navy jack also it has a snake and it says, don’t tread on me. It’s a it’s a red and white striped flag. Yeah. I mean, because you’re on water. No, that was just the one of the first Navy jacks. That that was the first Navy, Jack. And so the Navy, where’s that on our uniforms?

00:36:27:15 – 00:36:47:08

We would have that patch on our uniforms. But anyway, that’s a digression. Yeah, I digress. So parents want reliable ways to reach their children. That’s another argument in this. And again, if the phone is still in the possession of the child, there is at least the point of contact being there. If the child needs to reach out, they would have access to the phone.

00:36:47:10 – 00:37:05:05

But for all of human history up to this point, since we’ve had public schools, if you needed to get in touch with your children, you contacted the school. So you would either go to the school or you would contact administration. Your kid could be pulled out of class, and then you could get messages through that still exists to this day.

00:37:05:08 – 00:37:26:20

The idea that if your kid can’t use their cell phone throughout the day, that you have somehow lost all communication with them is simply not true. So again, I think this is the actual strongest argument against the band. Correct? Is that that parental freedom to be able to parent and access your child when you need to, especially in real emergent situations, correct that.

00:37:26:22 – 00:37:50:06

So this this is the strongest argument that I know a lot of you will probably latch on to here. And we are going to talk about that a little bit in this podcast. So before you send a nasty message to us, just listen to the rest of the podcast. I think we have more to say. And I’ll say to that, I mean, if you’re sending your kids to public school, then you are inherently placing trust in the school to discipline them and interact with them and communicate with you as is appropriate and necessary.

00:37:50:06 – 00:38:03:14

So the idea that you have to have a direct line to your kid in order for that to still be the case again, I mean, I think the logic does fall apart. They’re a little bit, well, kind of, but you also are required to educate your child by law. You have to send your child to school or homeschool.

00:38:03:20 – 00:38:27:27

Yeah, but not everybody has the ability or financial means to stay at home and school their kid, you know. Right. Well, and now we’re getting into a separate issue, which, I mean, again, the concept of school choice is a hotly debated topic. So perhaps it’s true to your point that people maybe don’t have the inherent trust they should have in the public school system, and that I think that point is well taken, because there have been lots of institutions that have undermined that trust in one way or another.

00:38:28:03 – 00:38:47:23

So, yeah, I mean, that’s a good point. And that’s why this argument is the strongest. It is if you’ve got a situation where your kid is being mistreated in some way by school staff, then yeah, this becomes a very powerful argument because their only way out of that is to have a line to the parent or to some someone else who can help them directly in that situation.

00:38:47:28 – 00:39:07:16

There’s not a good fix for that, except that obviously, you know, the school district has to police their staff and make sure that their staff are not being abusive in some way to the kids. And there are plenty of ways, if you become aware of that, to interdict on that as well. So the you know, the question is, do we need a cell phone in a kid’s hand right now for the situation?

00:39:07:17 – 00:39:29:12

I’m not sure you do in most of those situations. And before we go further with the case against the band, I just wanted to ask you just perspective, because you homeschool your children, your your wonderful wife does that. She does. She’s excellent at it, from what I understand. I’m just curious from, like, just a philosophical standpoint, is that one of the reasons you guys made the decision to homeschool your five children?

00:39:29:15 – 00:39:46:23

I think so, so we we were both public schooled, and we grew up with kids who were homeschooled. And, I mean, it’s no secret that a lot of people that were homeschooled, I think in our day and age, they lacked social interaction to a degree that in some cases made them kind of awkward people to interact with and deal with.

00:39:46:27 – 00:40:16:00

They may have been really well educated and really smart, but they didn’t have the kind of savvy that people who are growing up in the public school ecosystem had. But in recent years, I think that that has no longer really become an incentive, at least in our calculation, for sending kids to public school. And my children, not to toot their horn, are very intelligent, and so sending them to an environment where the education is tailored to the lowest denominator was not appealing to us.

00:40:16:03 – 00:40:33:09

If we sent at least our oldest to public school, she would be bored. And, the reality is, I mean, that there’s the school could not keep up with her at this point to the level that we are educating her and able to do, because we can focus directly on her. Her standardized testing scores are through the roof.

00:40:33:10 – 00:40:56:26

I mean, there’s she’s doing far better than I ever did in public school, and she’s going to continue to to do well because we are able to tailor the approach to her directly. And that’s a luxury that public schools do not have because they’re dealing with 30, 40, 50 students per class or, you know, depending on how big the school is or, you know, maybe on the low end, 15 to 20 students per class.

00:40:56:26 – 00:41:20:03

So, there’s a limit to what teachers can do to actually stimulate the outlier children when they’re having to lead the group together. And that was one of the big both sides to. Yes. Like, you know, that’s that’s the highly intelligent but also the highly challenged children as well. So that that was a big factor. But the other big factor is we like being able to control what they learn.

00:41:20:05 – 00:41:41:02

I mean, that’s that’s ultimately another thing. I mean, there’s we do have philosophical objections to some of the things that are being taught in schools today. So like, you make your children salute you before dinner, I think, right? That’s correct. Yeah, I know, yeah, I know, but seriously, a lot of that credit to your wife, you know, give her a lot of credit for that because you’re you’re about to call me Admiral Long.

00:41:41:03 – 00:42:01:16

No. Yeah. No. But seriously, my thought on that is, you know, I think you said earlier that your calculation regarding the social interaction that they can now get in today’s world of public school. Yeah. Far different than it was when we were in public. Yeah. Because in a lot of ways it’s not good social interaction now but know there’s opportunities to.

00:42:01:17 – 00:42:21:28

Yeah. And and and this may be what you’re getting at. But now with homeschool I mean the way that we homeschool, she our kids still have in class with other students. They still meet in class with other students. Yeah. You did tell me that, like once or twice a week, right? We do field trips with them. We, we have them involved in activities, so they’re getting interaction there.

00:42:22:00 – 00:42:55:28

Yeah. So we do what we can to fill that need as well. That’s a that’s something that we do the best we can with those situations. But some of the interaction that you would get in a public school system, I mean, we talked about this earlier. I mean, it’s not good interaction. No, it can be highly and, you know, and I’ll tell you something, you know, I got at least one kid that we’ve considered even sending this child to public school just to see this kid get bullied a little bit, because it probably would be good for this kid to go in and be humbled a little bit and have some interaction.

00:42:55:28 – 00:43:11:08

Oh, yeah, I think I know who’s home. And because, you know, I mean, the reality is you go into that environment and you’re not as hot as you may think you are. And so, you know, some of that interaction is good because it is sort of self disciplinary. You know, amongst the kids, it’s almost like a Lord of the flies kind of situation.

00:43:11:09 – 00:43:30:18

But some of that is a good thing because it it teaches acceptable social behavior and it does humble you. Yeah. And we’ve got good friends that are dealing with that now. They’ve homeschooled all their kids for a while, and they have a teenage son who I mean, they’re they’re thinking, we got to get this kid out of the house because he’s bucking up against authority and he’s doing.

00:43:30:18 – 00:43:47:08

And I think if you do the homeschooling and you’re very careful about screen time and devices and all that, and that’s going to probably become more challenging as your kids grow up. But you guys will police that, I think, real well, and I think, you’ll do just fine. And I know it’s been very successful for you and your wife, and I’m happy it’s worked for us.

00:43:47:11 – 00:44:13:24

And I mean, some people it wouldn’t work for. So I mean that, you know, you have to make those choices. And to come back to the point that you were making, you know, whether you are sort of begrudgingly sending your kids to public school because it’s the it’s that’s just the best option you have. Maybe you don’t trust that the people in the school are really looking out for your kids, and you kind of want to have that communication with them throughout the day so that, you know, like, how are they really doing throughout the day?

00:44:13:27 – 00:44:37:09

You know, you have to balance that against the need for your kid to kind of figure some of this stuff out on their own. They have to go into the world at some point and be able to fend for themselves. And comparatively speaking, even with all the bad stuff that happens at public schools, that’s not a bad environment for kids to be able to go in and start figuring out, how do I talk to people?

00:44:37:09 – 00:44:58:05

How do I interact with adults? What do I do if I’m in trouble? Those are those are things they’re going to learn. And that’s a good thing to be able to let them figure that out and learn from that. It is not a good thing when parents have to be involved in every aspect of their kids life. So you gotta you gotta learn to balance that even though you want the communication.

00:44:58:06 – 00:45:20:16

All right. I’m going to force you back into cringing now. Case for the band or case against the band. Well, yeah, I was going to move on here. So the next one and this one I, I really recoil from this one. Enforcement may create unnecessary confrontations. That’s the argument. Well, if if my kid can’t have a phone and the school comes and catches him on the phone and he gets attitude with the school, that’s not that’s not Governor Shapiro’s problem.

00:45:20:16 – 00:45:37:21

And that’s not the law’s problem. That’s your kid’s problem. Your kid is the one who’s creating that confrontation. So maybe it is good for kids to learn a little bit of submission here and to be able to learn their rules, and I have to follow those rules. And if I get caught violating those rules, I have to be prepared to pay the penalty for that.

00:45:37:21 – 00:46:04:02

That’s a lesson that life will teach you. This one to me is not really helpful at all, I agree. Case against the I agree. It’s like saying it’s like I don’t like the rule because my kid will. My kid is going to disobey the rule and he’ll get confrontational. Exactly. Confrontational. Yeah, I mean, this this reminds me of like when I’m telling my kids like like I love you, but you gotta listen to me as your parent when I ask you to do something or, I mean, I’m not driving you around here, like.

00:46:04:03 – 00:46:18:17

Like, you know, making you forcing you to do chores all the time, but, like, listen, as a parent, just listen to me. And this is just saying, listen to the rules. That’s what that is. And, if your kids going to get confrontational because they had to listen to a rule, well, shame on them. And that’s why this argument fails.

00:46:18:18 – 00:46:40:26

Yeah. And I agree because, I mean, unfortunately, especially in the modern age, we all are to some degree a little bit of like drones, you know, like we’re all bound by rules and we have systems we operate within. And, you know, you’re going to do standardized testing. And if you decide you want to answer to every A, B, C, d question, well, you’re operating outside the rules and you’re not going to succeed.

00:46:40:26 – 00:47:05:12

So your kids going to have to learn to operate within the rules and, and or else pay the consequences. And by statistics you should get a 25% test. Well right. Yeah. Right. There’s an interesting. Well actually that another time a BCDE or a BCD. But if they’re answering eat everything then they’re wrong on everything. 0%. Percent. Yeah. So the next argument against the ban is that schools may face administrative and financial burdens.

00:47:05:12 – 00:47:32:14

And I, I, I am sympathetic to this one as well because if a school or a or if a school faces financial burdens, who’s ultimately facing the financial burden, it’s us. It’s so yeah, I’m I am definitely sympathetic to that because there probably is going to be a cost associated with this law, whether it’s the school having to pay for specialized storage locations or, you know, to add those into the school or pay for paying for the tablets, just paying for the yeah that’s true.

00:47:32:15 – 00:47:48:15

I mean, that’s true. Let me tell you funny story about this. My son Lincoln. I pulled my leg there and I and part of this was his teachers fault. I forget which teacher it was, but shame on you, teacher. Yeah, no, but it was funny. So he comes home with school with this little this this paper. It’s from back, and it looks very official.

00:47:48:15 – 00:48:08:05

It’s on. My kids go to Dallastown School District. It’s on Dallastown official letterhead. And it talks about how there has been at a recent school board meeting. There has been, by the way, which I got no notice of, but I don’t check that that regularly. That there was there having some financial, difficulty difficulties and burdens and things like that.

00:48:08:05 – 00:48:32:12

And it has caused them to have to reassess their the child’s use of tablets or their laptops that they get their, the laptops. And for that reason, every every child parent is now going to have to pay $550 for their child to use a tablet. And if your child cannot use that tablet because of financial constraints in your household, they can they will be given an option to use paper.

00:48:32:15 – 00:48:52:16

And I’m reading this and I’m like, how terrible. I’m like, I’m like, well, yeah, but I’m thinking like, dude, first of all, I have five kids, so 550 per year, kid. I mean, do the math. Y’all better get comfortable with the on paper, man. And I’m thinking like, dude, how is anybody gonna afford this? Yeah. But then he’s like, and he let me go for a while and I’m like, dude, this is crazy.

00:48:52:16 – 00:49:06:08

I can’t believe people aren’t, like, up in arms about this and objecting and going to the meeting and yelling and screaming. And then he’s like, dad. He’s like, because I think he’s like, I think my dad’s gonna call the school. So he’s like, he’s like. He’s like, no, I’m sorry. I was just a joke, you know? But that’s funny.

00:49:06:09 – 00:49:21:00

He got me and his teacher got me and got his mom to my wife. I’ll tell you what, man. I, I mean, I hand wrote the bar exam. I wrote all my exams. High school. You said that in the state? Yeah. You must have a good. I mean, well, no. Not necessarily. I have seen your penmanship. It’s not very good.

00:49:21:02 – 00:49:41:18

Well, thanks a lot, and I appreciate that. I mean, it’s it’s, you know, it can be done. You know, the idea that we have to have tablets or laptops for kids to be successful students is not true. So, you know, I’m sympathetic to the idea of financial burdens, but also at the same time, what really is the what’s causing the burden?

00:49:41:18 – 00:49:57:18

Is it because, you know, the the schools are not enforcing the rule or they’re enforcing it? And you, you know, your kid is now having to have a special place in the school to store a phone or any of those other things. I mean, at the end of the day, if you don’t want the expense, then just comply with the rule.

00:49:57:18 – 00:50:13:21

Keep the phone at home. I am, I am. Don’t put it on the school. And I didn’t look into this. Maybe you guys don’t know this. If you know it as a viewer comment. Do you guys know if as part of this bill, there was any sort of funding that was going to be added to help schools comply?

00:50:13:22 – 00:50:45:18

That’s unclear. I didn’t see that. You want to look into that because they have to adopt a compliance policy. There is the school does. Yeah. But I’m wondering if the government will provide extra funding to be compliant because it’s going to require like physical like compliance things we’re going to have to do, whether it’s the, you know, what they call storage bags or whatever they put, you know, and then there’s going to be a question and we’re going to talk about it as to what if a device gets damaged or lost or stolen, you know, and going back to our law school one year, one stuff, now you have a situation where you’re creating a

00:50:45:18 – 00:51:02:15

bail relationship between the student and the school. You know, it’s like the the coat check man, you’re checking your phone in, and now the school is assuming some liability for that phone. Potentially. The law actually does give some. The new law does give some clearance teachers in that regard, because I think they thought of that at that time.

00:51:02:16 – 00:51:27:08

Yeah. And we’ll get into that. But yeah, it’s a year one law school concept. So I would hope they would think of it. So essentially what I can see here is that, Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee prepared a fiscal note for SB 1014, which is the bill number. And the conclusion was the provisions contained in Senate Bill 1014 will have no fiscal impact on Commonwealth funds.

00:51:27:10 – 00:51:44:01

So no funding. However, I find that suspicious from a government that spends money like it’s going out of style though, so. Well, well, there’s no not for the kids. Yeah. There’s no financial implications for our budget here. Yeah. I mean, granted we don’t know how to balance the budget, but whatever. You guys go into the luncheon now. Exactly.

00:51:44:05 – 00:52:07:03

Yeah. Like open bar. Yeah. Oh, but no, it does say that. For 2025, 2026. The budget included 100 million for school safety and security grants, 20.7 million for targeted school safety grants for nonpublic schools and school entities. So it sounds like they got a lot of money to pull from. Yeah. Okay. So that was from last year.

00:52:07:09 – 00:52:24:10

So but it does sound like the type of thing where, oh, now you can’t spend it on that. You got to spend it over here. So there’s no what you’re telling us though is there’s no additional funding added for this bill specifically. No additional funding for this bill. It’s on the school to figure it out. That’s the drawback of government intervention on anything, unfortunately.

00:52:24:10 – 00:52:45:03

But and then the last argument against the ban is that a blanket policy like this is an inconvenience for people who are using phone for legitimate purposes. That may be true, but again, as far as you know, like my priorities are concerned, I really I really don’t care about the inconvenience to students. I really do is kind of reminds me of like who?

00:52:45:03 – 00:53:00:28

Who like, oh, it’s inconvenient. Like, yeah, we had a law school professor that told. I mean, because it’s inconvenient for me to not be able to text while I’m driving, especially in our business, being able to pick up the phone and call clients or whatever while we’re driving. That’s inconvenient. Super inconvenient. Yeah, because it takes away from our billable.

00:53:00:29 – 00:53:19:12

But I also acknowledge that that is that is right. Yeah. You know, and and we had a law school professor in an ethics class that would say all the time, life is a choice. It’s not these choices aren’t presented to you as a choice between right and wrong. It’s a choice between doing what is right and doing what is easy.

00:53:19:15 – 00:53:36:26

And if you’re making the comfort based decision and you’re going based off of convenience every time, you’re making a lot of wrong decisions in life. And again, I mean, this a lot of these arguments do not address the fundamental question, which is, should kids be using phones in schools at all? Is that really what is best for them?

00:53:36:26 – 00:53:54:27

These are all arguments that try to get around that question for some reason or another. And this this argument especially just sidesteps the question whether kids should be using phones in schools. Well, it’s inconvenient for them not to use phones in schools, so therefore it must be right for them to use phones in schools, right? That’s not how we reason.

00:53:54:28 – 00:54:14:27

Again, the argument that argument to me is yeah, I agree also. So I mean, if you really balance this I mean it weighs heavily in favor. I agree it does. But I appreciate the emergency circumstances. I think like you said, I mean the emergency situations, that’s the biggest argument for being able to use school. And you know what?

00:54:14:29 – 00:54:28:09

Let’s speak plainly. One thing that I think scares the crap out of a lot of people is what if there’s a school shooting? Yeah. And that’s actually we’re going to talk about that, right? Yeah. You know what I mean? That that topic specifically, that was well, the first thing I thought of when I read this, that’s what I thought.

00:54:28:14 – 00:54:47:06

What if there was a school shooting because you’ve had situations recently where responders were armed, armed civilians who come in and save the day because they got a text from somebody inside the school, right? And they and they respond faster than police or somebody can. So, you know, yeah, the school shooting that just happened, that is the biggest.

00:54:47:08 – 00:55:13:10

That’s right. Case against this band. Okay. Justin, I want to come over to you. I want to go nuts and bolts. So this law requires schools technically to do two things. So lay them out for us, and, just give us those details. Yeah. It’s essentially what the bill is entitled us. What? Bell. Bell cell phone band.

00:55:13:10 – 00:55:37:21

So essentially they have to prohibit the use of mobile devices during the school day while on school property. And then they also have to establish how, essentially that that ban is enforced, meaning how student possession of those devices will ultimately be restricted during the school day. Yeah. It does not require the schools to physically take possession of every student’s phone.

00:55:37:28 – 00:56:03:05

The schools do have flexibility and how they restrict possession, but they cannot simply opt out of the required prohibition on use. So essentially they have to establish again how it will be restricted. I think that’s going to be a big hot topic at the beginning of the next school year. Well, honestly, probably over the next year essentially leading into next school year.

00:56:03:09 – 00:56:22:21

It’s the how. Yeah, like that is going to be they have a lot of freedom and flexibility here under this law, but they must prohibit it. So okay. And I have to do this. How do we get from a to be. And I think again going into next year seeing how certain districts and certain schools do it, obviously some are going to do it better than others.

00:56:22:22 – 00:56:48:15

And what works for one school may not work for another school due to again size, funding, etc. so I’m actually very, very curious to see how long it takes after this goes into effect next year before we start seeing amendments to it, or again, things being changed because of issues that arise that nobody’s thought of yet. I bet you it’s going to come from schools though.

00:56:48:16 – 00:57:09:08

Like I bet you the schools are going to the schools are going to be adopting policies and they’re the ones that are going to change it. Yeah. My hope they might. Yeah, my hope would be because again, I favor limited government and small, you know, intrusions as much as possible. My hope would be that the school would say, okay, we’re complying with this because the plan is we’re not going to let kids use phones anymore.

00:57:09:10 – 00:57:33:11

So the expectation is that the kids retain control of their devices with the understanding that they are not allowed to use those at any point in the school day. And my hope would be that’s where we start. In most of these schools, you’re not going to muddy the waters by having schools take possession of phones right away. You’re not going to create, you know, have to renovate your school to create a special locker area for the phones or whatever.

00:57:33:12 – 00:57:53:12

For hundreds or thousands of students. You’re going to start small and keep the intrusion small. But the problem is, you are almost certainly going to have kids that decide they want to push that on. You’re you’re still going to have phones going off in class, and those kids are going to ruin it for everybody. Those kids are going to make it so that the school says, okay, we have a job to do.

00:57:53:15 – 00:58:22:09

We’re taking everybody’s phones publicly shamed those kids. Yeah, I mean, I let the problem sort of I agree with you that that’s how it might start, but it’s not where it’s going to. That’s not where it’s going to just can’t I agree. Too many bad actors or kids that think they’re going to get away from it and get away with it, but that’s the I mean, again, that’s the parents where it’s like, okay, if you don’t want the school to be all up in your business about your phone, then the parents are should say, then we expect total compliance too, because that’s how you keep control of your phone.

00:58:22:09 – 00:58:39:18

That’s how life works. That’s how being an adult works, is you want to you want to have the freedom, but you don’t want any. The responsibility that comes with the freedom I’m curious to see. I obviously there’s a few different courthouses. I know lakes or county uses them. Lebanon County uses them. I’ve seen them in the back of the bags.

00:58:39:18 – 00:58:59:22

Yeah, the Pharaoh bags. But I will say there was a I was in Lancaster. This is already about six months ago. And it was right before, like the 130 block of cases, ton of people coming in and out of the courthouse. So, there was one of the sheriff’s deputies, and I felt so bad for him because he’s, like, handing out these things because they, again, they lock when you, like, press the button or whatever.

00:58:59:29 – 00:59:16:26

Well, a bunch of people, for whatever reason, I guess that day in the morning. Left their ringers on or whatever, and then they’re locked in the bag, so they’re in court, and it’s just going off the whole time. They can’t shut it off. So that’s. I think I do like those. You usually tell you power your phone off before putting it in there.

00:59:16:27 – 00:59:38:02

People don’t do that. Yeah. So I’m curious to see I think those would be like, if they were actually going to make students do something with their phones. They don’t have to confiscate them or like, physically take possession of students can keep them. But they would essentially remain locked in there. But then again, people will be up in arms like, what if there is an emergency?

00:59:38:02 – 00:59:57:23

How do we get the phone? And I’m sure students can have some bad actors that are gonna, you know, screw with those things, damage them. But, you know, at that point, that school property, you could be held accountable for that criminal charge. Yeah, potentially. So I do think that they again, if if they’re going to go right into something, I think that would be a good starting point.

00:59:57:25 – 01:00:18:28

Yeah. It also allows for that caveat of what if there’s a school shooting. Yeah. Because then your kid has your phone on them. They can power it on and use it. Yeah. And that would obviously be an exception. But the problem is that that’s such a great result. It’s never going to fly and it’s going to go away pretty quickly because kids will not comply.

01:00:19:00 – 01:00:37:15

And even that like let’s let’s play this logic out a little bit like take the school shooting thing. Does it is it really helpful in the event of a school shooting to have 600 kids calling out? No it’s not. You could potentially bring down a 911 dispatch center by bombarding them. And then guess what? Now the response is stunted.

01:00:37:17 – 01:01:08:06

So, you know, on one hand, it is good for a student who perceives a security risk to be able to call immediately and be able to perceive that maybe before staff does or before any other students do, and they are the first one out. But, you can imagine a mass panic scenario or how the communication devolves in a situation like that when you’ve got hundreds of kids that are all just on their cell phones, especially because if there is an active shooter, the number one priority is not getting on your phone.

01:01:08:12 – 01:01:28:28

The number one priority is surviving the school shooting. So that’s kind of where we’re at. I mean, even the strong arguments have weaknesses that you have to account for in a, in a real world dynamic situation like that. And, you know, there’s not a good answer. The faster first responders respond, the more lives will be saved. Correct. Right.

01:01:28:29 – 01:01:58:22

And that’s that’s obvious. Right. So even if one, two, five, ten calls get out and then the nine on one system crashes. They’re still coming quicker than nobody calls. Right. You know, you have to wait for a teacher to call. But if something like that. Let’s say if the if the call is already gone out and then there’s still hundreds of calls coming in and the situation is changing, that information can theoretically be delayed or or it can affect the the dispatchers ability to get more people or better assets to the school.

01:01:58:22 – 01:02:24:10

Now they have protocols for this. If if word gets out of a school shooting, the whole system is mobilizing at that point anyway. So it’s not like they’re going to have to, you know, they need new information to do their job. But the lines of communication really do need to be open. And if if you’ve got hundreds of kids that are panicking and not listening to instruction from teachers and calling 911 or calling their family or whatever, we’ve also seen this.

01:02:24:10 – 01:02:42:28

I believe this was a factor in the Uvalde shooting. When you’ve got kids calling out to their parents during an active shooter situation, the natural reaction from parents were going to the school and we’re going to get in everybody’s way. And obviously, you know, you’ve already shooting, had a lot of problems with the response. My child called me and said of school shooting, I would go to the school.

01:02:42:29 – 01:03:01:20

Yeah, I would go there and I would try to get into the school, correct my kid out. I, I, you know, I totally normal reaction. But yeah, that can that can elevate the posture such that you’ve got a parent who is, who is doing something that actually interferes with the response. Yeah I do, I just think as a parent, your thought about that.

01:03:01:26 – 01:03:19:17

Yeah. Override the safety of your personal child. And I agree. And I’m not saying that’s an irrational view at all, but I’m saying again that that can have unintended consequences, which can actually be yeah. See that actually going horribly wrong. I mean, think about parents running in there who have firearms, right, and are going to protect their kids, right?

01:03:19:18 – 01:03:41:03

I mean, we just saw a school shooting, though, be thwarted by somebody who heard the gunshots and went in and took the shooter out. That just happened, I think, last week. Well, nobody’s reporting on it, but like that’s great. That’s something that happened. Right. So like it does happen. But again, I mean if you’ve got responders already there then you know, you you can’t get in the way.

01:03:41:05 – 01:04:01:23

Yeah. You know, you’re, you’re hurting your kids yourself at risk. Exactly. Because, I mean, they can mistake you for somebody with a gun. Sure. You know. So anyway. All right. So short of the option that you described there guys about, you know, kids put your cell phone in your backpack as soon as you walk into the school building and turn it off.

01:04:01:23 – 01:04:24:21

And it’s got to stay powered off all day, the next available option would be some sort of security secured storage system where you would actually put it in school. Right. And this is going to take innumerable types of, you know, options for this innumerable ways of looking at this. Now, again, we are the 25th state to do this.

01:04:24:21 – 01:04:46:23

I’m sure it’s been done in other states. And I’d be curious to know what’s been successful. And I’m sure other school districts are going to look at that. But I think there is a big parental, concern from a lot of people about a school physically confiscating a cell phone from a student, you know, which is, again, it’s the parents property most of the time.

01:04:47:00 – 01:05:04:23

So it’s they’re taking away your own property from your kid, and they could damage it. They could lose it. They could do all sorts of things with it. And it’s a freedom thing, too, and it’s a privacy thing. So I want to talk about that a little bit. I think there’s there’s arguments for physical storage by teachers. I think there’s arguments against it.

01:05:04:26 – 01:05:19:11

So I’d like to just like we did with the case against the ban and the case for the ban, I want to kind of balance that a little bit. So, Justin, I’m going to pop over to you. I’m going to make you first make the case against physical storage, okay. Because I had Tim do against the ban.

01:05:19:11 – 01:05:34:29

So I’m going to give him the easier one for the for this. I just and just again, I, I think it should be that they don’t take physical custody. Okay. Well then I’ll tell you what. I’m gonna make you do the one you don’t want. That’s what I mean. So. Yeah. So the one that I don’t want would be taking, you know, the story.

01:05:35:00 – 01:05:58:22

Give us the argument to him. Go for for it for physical storage. Give us that. And then we’ll go to Justin. And again, I mean it it’s hard for me to argue with these because the arguments are good. And the argument is that teachers should not have to police the cell phone use. And because, like we’ve admitted already, they’re going to be kids that push the envelope with this rule, you are still causing a distraction in the classroom, and teachers are going to be the ones that have to bear the brunt of that distraction.

01:05:58:22 – 01:06:22:00

That’s really hard to argue with unless every kid is going to comply completely. Well, the other thing too, is that teachers already do so much. Right. And here’s one more thing, guys. Now you got to do this. And this is actually gonna be pretty involved because every individual student, every individual phone, you’re the police officer. And if and if, if the kid is going to get an attitude about it, you’re putting the teacher in the unfortunate position where they have to enforce a rule and you get a kid that’s lippy about it.

01:06:22:00 – 01:06:47:21

So, yeah, I mean, I don’t like that option. And it’s it sucks for teachers. The next argument for physical storage is that students should would have fewer opportunities to secretly check messages, disrupt their day. Yeah, exactly. And that makes sense. I agree they shouldn’t be doing that. Well, and this is this. This is what’s going to make it fail, is there’s going to be kids that are going into their backpack and like, looking at it when no one’s looking or they’re trying to do it in the hallway.

01:06:47:22 – 01:07:06:02

Right. All these schools have cameras now. They’re going to be catching kids constantly. Well, and there’s a comedian that talks about this. He has a podcast and he I think he’s kind of serious about this point. And I think it’s a good point is that if you go into like a public restroom, a lot of times people go in there and what are they doing in the restroom?

01:07:06:04 – 01:07:26:12

They’re playing on their phone, so they’re occupying a restroom far longer than they need to because they’re sitting on their phone. So that’s ignorant behavior because you’re not considering the people waiting to use the restroom. You’re just playing Candy crush on your phone, sitting on the toilet for 30 minutes after you’re done doing what you’re doing. Right. So it’s ignorant behavior, right?

01:07:26:14 – 01:07:41:27

Yeah. What you’re going to have is you’re going to have a lot of kids sneaking off to the bathroom for 50 minutes at a time. Yeah, checking their phone, and they’re missing all that class and they’re sitting on the toilet. All of a sudden there’s a line down the hall, out the bathroom. So everybody’s got a pee, and that’s that’s what’s going to happen, right?

01:07:41:28 – 01:08:03:05

So, you know, that’s it’s hard to argue with that. Yeah. Because we see it as adults. Yeah. The enforcement becomes more consistent if no kid has access to a phone because it’s locked away in a storage or something like that, then nobody has access. So it’s consistent across the board. The interruptions in the classroom from cell phones would decrease because again, they’re not a factor.

01:08:03:08 – 01:08:22:24

The exposure to social media in school is not going to be a factor, because kids don’t have access to social media in school now, they still might have access to it on other school devices. So the school has to have some kind of tech protocol for blocking access to those websites to social media. Is drama in school like it causes drama?

01:08:22:28 – 01:08:45:00

So taking that out of the equation, you’re probably saving kids educational behavioral records to an extent, you know, and it’s less opportunities for cyberbullying during school. And, you know, again, this is a point I don’t think we really hammered home before, but it forces kids to interact with other people. You’re not going to be able to text your buddy who’s in a different class.

01:08:45:06 – 01:09:01:26

You’re going to have to interact with the people in your current class because that’s how life works. You have to interact with people. You have to learn to get along with the people that you’re with. It’s going to take it back to learn that social interaction that kids are of the 90s and maybe even early 2000, we had that.

01:09:01:26 – 01:09:21:29

And damn, that is beneficial. Guys like we that’s social interaction that teaches you how to be an adult. It really does. And that’s I want kids to have that opportunity to have that. I think I’ve heard of studies out there that talk about too, like the length of like people being able to sustain a conversation with other people and the correlation between that and the excessive electronics use.

01:09:22:03 – 01:09:43:01

And I think if I’m remembering correctly, the correlation is that the, the people who are more reliant on the, the electronics, social media kind of stuff. Those are people who are less able to sustain even just basic conversations with other people. Right. So all right. You know. Good. Well, I think that’s, the arguments for physical storage by the school.

01:09:43:01 – 01:10:21:02

Justin, we’re going to go to you for arguments against mandatory physical storage in the school. Absolutely. So I think the obvious one is the schools then, essentially are managing or taking physical control of potentially thousands of phones on a daily basis. It creates logical, excuse me, logistical and administrative burdens because, like we just talked about, if they’re implementing a storage system, then that that storage system has to be put somewhere, has to be paid for, has to be built in.

01:10:21:04 – 01:10:49:17

Devices could be lost or damaged. And then, like you said, you know who who bears the, the burden there, if things are getting lost or stolen, especially by school staff, whether it’s, you know, a teacher, a janitor, anybody really working there that creates not only issues, in that exact moment, but I think it could be longer lasting effects on the school to have to deal with that.

01:10:49:20 – 01:11:14:18

Students and parents may object to surrendering personal property. That one. I mean, the ban is the ban. It’s the law. Yeah. So, you know, I don’t find that one to be a strong I think the biggest one is probably going to be cost. And I actually just pulled up a couple of statistics here from some other, states and, essentially here’s a comparison of some storage options.

01:11:14:18 – 01:11:39:17

So the locking pouches on average cost between 20 to $35 a piece. So you have 2000 students there, 20. It’ll say it’s $25. That’s like 50 grand right there. The centralized lockers. So, essentially the ones that I’ve seen on here that I was able to pull up, they look like bigger safes. But they have individual, like, holes for, you know, a cell phone.

01:11:39:20 – 01:12:06:11

Those are about 100 to $500 per cabinet. And I think the biggest one I saw just briefly looking this up was it held about 32 phones. So again, 2000 students or more. It’s a lot of a lot of money. They also take up physical space with limited space. The the cheapest one that I saw here. And I actually kind of think this could potentially be a good option.

01:12:06:14 – 01:12:29:00

You know, those, like, shoe holders that you put over the doors, they’re like plastic pouches. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, they on average cost 24 to $40 apiece. If each classroom had one, when you go into the classroom, you put your phone in it. Technically I think that one again would be the cheapest. And although you know another student, when they’re picking up their phone can take another student’s phone.

01:12:29:03 – 01:12:43:27

I think it, yeah it could work. But, but if you police that your cameras in the school, you’re going to see if people are stealing devices and things like that. But then the, the issue with that one is, what about when they’re in the hallways? Yeah. What about what? The issue maybe. I mean, maybe that’s the middle ground.

01:12:43:28 – 01:13:03:23

I mean, maybe you because in that scenario you have you’re taking your phone with you from class to class. If you’re moving classes, which most high schools you do now. Yeah. And in a school shooting situation, the cell phones right there in the classroom with. Yeah. Right. So it’s not locked in the front of the school, you know, a hundred yards away from where you’re at.

01:13:03:23 – 01:13:26:14

It’s it’s it’s literally in that classroom. Teacher still retains control because, I mean, in theory, even in a school shooting situation, I mean, obviously you’ve got protocol. You have to follow getting kids out of the way of the door, locking the door, all that stuff. So the teacher can be responsible for designating a student to call 911. That student gets the phone, and then the others focus on either barricading or whatever else they have to do.

01:13:26:15 – 01:13:53:20

Yeah, you could come up with like protocols, because I think that’s really another fear is that if we’re going to if in that situation, if kids are all focusing on calling 911 again, I mean, that’s not the focus in that situation for every single person, right? So no, that’s that’s a that’s a point where I’ll take it. And then the, the other one that is suggested or what some states have done is what they are calling a hybrid system.

01:13:53:24 – 01:14:14:03

So, like high school students, they use the locking pouches, right, because they’re more likely to be on their phones. Middle school, they use more of, like, a centralized storage cabinet because it’s going to be cheaper because not all of those kids are going to have phones. And then elementary school students, if they do have them.

01:14:14:05 – 01:14:37:26

Essentially just keep them in their backpacks or a designated space in the, in the class. I bet you actually that’s how it’s going to go, because that’s going to train the kids as they go up through the grades to like more advanced intrusions or even that’s a good point. But you’re gonna know, like, okay, in fourth and fifth grade, I got to do this and then, you know, but then also I think like the earlier you start that and they get used to it, then by the time they’re getting too high school commonplace.

01:14:37:27 – 01:14:58:28

Yeah. It’s almost like, you know. Yeah. That that’s actually what is it. Pavlov’s dogs. You know, you’re trained for brain conditioning. Yeah. And I think that again over time, like Tim said earlier. And what we said is I think, you know, looking back on this a few years down the road and even longer, once it’s implemented in the school districts, figured it out, I think it’s going to be a good thing.

01:14:58:29 – 01:15:33:17

And, and something that isn’t in our outline. But we should say it is that even if the school does take possession of the phone, in all likelihood it does not change the privacy rights that are inherent in the device itself. So, like if the school has that centralized locker, you know, they’re going to have protocols that they still have to follow if law enforcement or somebody else wants that device, just because the school takes it to comply with this law, doesn’t mean that while your kids in class that those phones are secretly being taken out of the lock, this is not a carte blanche.

01:15:33:17 – 01:15:58:16

They can search your phone and data, dumping all your that’s actually later in the outline, but we’re already going so far. Yeah, about the privacy concerns of of this and parents being worried about their their kids cell phones. Just getting started about that one I think that’s ridiculous. Yeah. But before we get into that one, I did want to, talk about what what their, this law discusses regarding damage or loss of a phone because that will invariably that will happen in some situations.

01:15:58:16 – 01:16:23:09

So the statute allows school policies to authorize employees to take possession of students mobile devices. Right. We said that already. And some schools are going to do that. Now, it also does protect the school employee or the school from this in a regard, it says that they are not liable for lost or damaged devices when that employee or school officials, in doing so, acted in good faith.

01:16:23:11 – 01:16:40:18

So if it was essentially something beyond their control. Now, this doesn’t mean every kid throws their their cell phone on the teacher’s desk. But if they’re acting in good faith and they’re complying with the policy that’s in place and a school cell phone gets damaged or lost, that is, the teacher will be absolved of any sort of, liability there.

01:16:40:23 – 01:17:01:16

Now, it doesn’t mean that every conceivable damage or loss is there, and they’re going to be, you know, absolved from. But if they are acting in good faith, they’re going to be pretty protected from that. Okay. Now I want to move to exceptions because we talked about this earlier. There are some very well placed exceptions in this. So, Justin, I’m going to go to you for the first one.

01:17:01:18 – 01:17:30:27

This one I think is obvious and should be part of the exception. So what’s that one? Medical conditions. Yeah. So, sure. School policy, when implemented, must allow a limited use when a student requires a mobile device because of a medical condition documented by a medical provider. The statute does cover a documented medical condition affecting either the student or an immediately family, immediate family member of the student.

01:17:31:00 – 01:17:56:05

That’s kind of like broad, because I mean, gosh, what if your your mom is sick that day? Do you automatically get carte blanche your cell phone just to. I would have talked to you not. Yeah. There’d have to be. It’d have to be. I would imagine a policy would have to be established. It would have to be a ongoing medical situation that you would need to have that access for whatever that limitation.

01:17:56:05 – 01:18:16:04

Maybe it’s not just going to be mom or dad is sick today. So I need my phone. The other thing too, is under this exception is the phone is to only be used for the purpose of that medical condition. This isn’t just a kid with a medical condition gets their phone carte blanche, and they just get to keep using it and for whatever purpose it is.

01:18:16:04 – 01:18:38:23

Limit. I’m on Instagram because I got a medical condition. Right? Exactly. That’s that’s not that’s not what this is. They are going to limit it. Yeah. I would think that is probably more like when I think of something like that that would require, you know, somebody with like say somebody had vision issues, right. And they, needed the phone, to essentially read to them.

01:18:39:00 – 01:18:58:00

Right. That’s in the next one, I think. Oh, yeah. And I think, Justin, I think I think about, my one of my sons, Lincoln, his best friend, who lives down the street from us, he has childhood diabetes, and he has a monitor on his body that actually connects to his cell phone to monitor his daily sugar.

01:18:58:06 – 01:19:13:11

And, that alerts him if he’s low or high and he has to take certain measures. And it is emerging because if he gets too low or high, he can go into diabetic shock. So, for that reason, I think that’s going to be a clear one that’s allowed. But again, in that scenario, he’s only going to be able to use it for that reason.

01:19:13:11 – 01:19:39:03

So he’s not going to be there texting or like playing games just because he has that. Yeah. Yeah. So all right Tim. What’s the second one? Piece or section 504 plans? Yeah. So if there’s a one of those in place that offers some kind of accommodation for the mobile device, that’s going to be permitted, and again, it has to be tied to that specific use for the device.

01:19:39:05 – 01:20:03:00

And there are already laws in effect. They can’t disregard applicable accommodations here just because they’ve got the school band. The school band is subordinate to those existing to those existing plans. Yeah. But again, just like we talked about before, this does not mean that every student with an IEP just gets to have their phone. There have to be specifically in their IEP for a specific accommodation or reason.

01:20:03:02 – 01:20:28:02

Yep. Right. And for those who don’t know I p is Individualized Education plan. Yeah we deal with those a lot and dependency court which which we do. So. Okay. Justin the third one. Yes. For English language learners. So there is an exception for students who use a mobile device for translation or other English as a second language purposes.

01:20:28:04 – 01:20:59:20

Again, the exception is tied directly to the qualifying educational or language related purpose. Again, like we said, it’s not a blanket. Exception to just go and use your phone to use social media. Text friends, play games, etc.. Okay. All right. I’ll take the next one. And that is that what’s called instructional use. So a teacher can actually authorize mobile device use for educational purposes during instructional time.

01:20:59:22 – 01:21:25:07

But there’s limitations and they’re pretty significant. So the limitations are that the separate school issued device is insufficient or unavailable to use. So they have to use a cell phone instead. The principal of the school has to determine that using the personal device in that specific scenario is appropriate. So this isn’t just you’ll walk into math class and the teacher says, hey, everybody, get out your cell phones.

01:21:25:08 – 01:21:53:27

It’s going to be a planned event. And the third is the authorization. Is limited in circumstance and duration. Rather than just permitting mobile devices to become a regular part of instruction. So there’s a very strict limitations here. I don’t think we’re going to see this one a lot, but maybe in certain planned events we will. But I don’t think this is going to be an ongoing, consistent thing because by its very virtue, it’s not allowed to be.

01:21:53:28 – 01:22:11:02

Yeah. This was something I think that was gaining popularity because of like the concepts of active learning and stuff. Like in law school, we saw a lot of professors that would they would have us using electronic devices for polls. So they’d ask a discussion question or something, and you’d either type an answer in or choose like a multiple choice.

01:22:11:02 – 01:22:26:08

So it was almost a way to like do pop quizzes where you’re giving an answer and it’s not like graded or you’re not anonymous, and all the answers are showing up on the board. And you know what I mean? Like, you can see how many people are answering in a certain way. Think that kind of stuff for this.

01:22:26:08 – 01:22:54:12

But again, the question is going to be can they use another device for that? Yeah. I mean is there another one that’s that’s plausible right. So I can’t remember if it was when we were in law school or if I did this at like a CLE or something. But I remember specifically having like maybe it was in college, there was like this like little remote clicker thing that had like 5 or 6 buttons on it that I had to buy for a class to use to answer questions or, or they gave it to us in class.

01:22:54:12 – 01:23:13:04

Was that do you remember doing that now? It might have been when I was at Bloomsburg then, like in one of the bigger, like lecture halls. But I specifically remember having like this again, it was like a little Tanner mode. I think, honestly, it kind of looks like our little, What is that? Dongle thing. I can’t think of what the word is stored.

01:23:13:05 – 01:23:35:24

No, it’s that’s like our dumb driver storage device for where we record these podcasts to the word. I don’t know what it is, but either way, it was about that size, and it had, like, it’s about like. Yeah, I had like a, B, C, d on it. And the professor would ask questions and then you’d have to hit the answer and it was like linked to your like student ID so like for quizzes and stuff rather than using paper you would answer them with that.

01:23:35:24 – 01:23:52:04

So it’s like electronic multiple choice. Yeah. It’s like one of those things they give to dogs or it’s like all the different buttons your dog can push and it’s like food outside. Yes. No. You’re like here, Justin. Yeah. We need this. We need this for Justin. Over here. Justin gets one of these. You’re the only one in the class using it.

01:23:52:04 – 01:24:11:00

Or he said I was the only one. It wasn’t up to anything. He just is in there pressing buttons. I was on a. We like to make him. And he’s smiling. I was I was on punked basically. But no, I do remember at some point using something like that. So again, I think years ago, if that was the thing, why do you need a cell phone?

01:24:11:00 – 01:24:34:12

So I’m be curious to see what they use for those. All right, Tim, last one. What’s the last exception? It’s like a catch all, a special limited circumstances. The policy can designate that the principal is going to approve certain additional exceptions. So it’s almost there giving the principal discretion to, to authorize individualized use of a cell phone.

01:24:34:12 – 01:25:02:15

For some reason or another. The principal has to notify the chief administrator or their designee, identify the purpose and duration, and describe who the exception covers, and so the exception cannot exceed. One day, notification has to be submitted within five days of the school day on which it occurred. Which is kind of strange because it almost sounds like they have a retroactive notice requirement, within five days after it’s occurred.

01:25:02:17 – 01:25:29:21

Useful for any random situation that the law did not comprehend that arises. So, you know, this is a positive in one sense, that the the law does contemplate that there are things it cannot foresee, and it gives school officials the opportunity to make decisions on that. Yeah. Okay. Now we’re going to move to the question that we’ve been kind of sprinkling throughout this episode about the school shooting, situation and how to handle that.

01:25:29:21 – 01:26:03:24

So supporters of these restrictions argue that students, again, should be focused on following instruction from school personnel during the day and even during an emergency situation, specifically, rather than using their cell phones, kind of to Tim’s point earlier, that you can almost overload the system or not be getting the right information through if everybody from every angle is trying to pass that information on opponents worry about, you know, again, as parents losing direct contact with their children in those very emergent situations that matter most.

01:26:03:29 – 01:26:38:21

So the new law does account for this a little bit. It says that schools must provide written notice to parents at the beginning of each school year, explaining one how to sign up for emergency notifications. These would be immediate emergency notifications, two how to contact their children during the school day. And three the school must ensure that any designated contact method it provides is staffed consistently throughout the entire school day, so the parent can have that access.

01:26:38:23 – 01:26:59:03

The statute identifies options such as school buildings, phone numbers, or an email address that they can access. Obviously, in an emergent situation, you’re going to want that personal direct contact. So I think a lot of this is probably going to have to be somebody who’s going to be manning a phone or multiple phone lines during an emergent situation where parents have that access.

01:26:59:03 – 01:27:15:12

And the key here is that every school year, the parents have to be provided this information in writing. So look for that as parents know it, like the back of your hand. Because if you unfortunately ever find yourself in a situation like this, you’re going to want to know that number you got to call or how to get in touch with somebody.

01:27:15:12 – 01:27:37:02

So you don’t do what I would do. And, you know, as I said earlier, and run down to the school and try to be hero, you want to be able to have that contact and let the professionals handle the situation. Okay. So I’m going to ask you, Justin, a question here. Can a parent demand that the school let their child keep a phone because of these emergency concerns?

01:27:37:02 – 01:27:58:27

Can they basically say, you know what, I’m I’m not going to agree with this law as a parent. I have a right to opt out. I mean, they can say it. Yeah, of course they can say it doesn’t mean, but no, the statute does not allow that. Yeah. Essentially it does not allow for parental opt out just based solely on their desire for direct communication with their child or children.

01:27:58:29 – 01:28:21:12

Essentially, in that someone has that concern, they should review, you know, the school’s emergency procedures and policies. And, you know, take it that route like we just talked about, or what you were just saying, you know, sign up for the emergency notifications. You can find out how you can contact your child or children during the day.

01:28:21:15 – 01:28:35:20

As I think Tim was saying earlier, you know, when I was in high school, I remember getting called to the principal’s office because, you know, my mom called or my dad called and said they were coming to pick me up for, like, a doctor’s appointment or something like that. You know, I wasn’t calling them. They weren’t calling me.

01:28:35:20 – 01:28:57:26

They were calling the school. So, that would be and I mean, I, I don’t want to be naive here and say that it is not lost on us, that in an emergency situation, it’s it’s not enough just to call a phone number like I would. A parent would not be satisfied with call. If you’re if there’s a school shooting, you just call this number and we’ll talk to you.

01:28:57:28 – 01:29:24:18

It’s going to have to be more than that. And I would really implore school districts to consider that, because I will as a parent, if that’s the option, I’m objecting to that, and I want to see more than that, and I want to know that it’s going to work. Now, they do require the consistent staffing. But I got to know that, you know, if 20 or 50 or 1000 parents are calling one phone number that they’re getting through, a thousand of them are getting through, you know, like what?

01:29:24:20 – 01:29:38:02

How is that going to get fixed? Tim? You want to add something to that? Well, just to say that, I mean, I and I get what you’re saying and I’m the same way and and for me, like if that if I were in that situation, I would want to know what is the status of my child? Is my child okay?

01:29:38:08 – 01:30:02:00

Is my child accounted for? That, I think is a perfectly normal concern. And you want to know that information. You want to know that immediately, as soon as possible. But whatever the system is going to be, you have to let that system work. You have to override your animal brain to allow that system to work so that you can get that information when it becomes available.

01:30:02:03 – 01:30:27:21

You know, just having the ability to call your kid and be on the phone with them during a school shooting, that doesn’t really accomplish anything. Yeah. So, I mean, what am I help? How am I helping? By being on the phone with my kid in that situation. So, you know, that really is the side of it that we, like I said, we would need to set that aside and understand that the main thing we’re all concerned about is what is the status of my child in a situation like that.

01:30:27:21 – 01:30:48:08

And school hopefully has a good plan for that, and they’ll get that information punched out as quickly as they have it. And there will be a way for for parents to be able to to get that information quickly. Yeah, that’s a very, very good point, Tim. All right. I think another thing that is on kind of everybody’s mind with this new cell phone ban is enforceability, right?

01:30:48:09 – 01:31:14:10

Like, how can a child be punished if they fail to comply with this rule, if they fail to comply with the policies that are put forth with by the school, can they get suspended? Can their behavioral record be tarnished? Like, you know, those are real implications for, parents who are especially of high school kids who are worried about their kids going to college and having a good record and things like that.

01:31:14:11 – 01:31:30:21

What if a little blip with a cell phone puts a tarnish on their record and and and how does that work? So guys, I’m going to try to explain this as best I can. But I will say it wasn’t totally clear within the statute because a lot of the onus is actually put on the school to come up with these policies.

01:31:30:23 – 01:31:51:02

So I think you’re going to see differences between schools. So violating a school phone policy, first of all, is not automatically the same thing as committing a criminal act or committing a crime. I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of police involvement, even with school resource officers in these activities. You might see it just with kind of trying to get it under control.

01:31:51:02 – 01:32:10:27

But I don’t think you’re going to see kids being charged criminally with crimes unless it gets to the point where it’s turning physical or into something beyond just a cell phone usage. So I don’t think you have to worry about the criminal aspect too much. I could eat my words later, but I don’t think that, you know, with reasonable people, that’s going to happen with very much frequency at all, you know?

01:32:10:28 – 01:32:36:23

And what it’s basically says is that schools must adopt policies containing appropriate enforcement and what oversight provisions are appropriate or not, and how certain scenarios will be handled. So the precise disciplinary outcomes, I think, are going to depend a lot on the applicable school policy and the students exact conduct in that scenario and other relevant rules, but it’ll be school specific.

01:32:36:23 – 01:32:52:20

And I want to make sure that schools are informing the kids ahead of time as to what these are. The kids should know this, the parents should know it so they can have those conversations with their kids. And it should be clear. And my guess is it’s probably going to be written down. It’s probably going to be in a written policy.

01:32:52:24 – 01:33:21:06

So. All right. Tim, you had brought this up earlier about the privacy considerations of searching a child’s phone when it’s in their custody. I just want to assuage people that might be concerned about this and what the law doesn’t allow for there. So you want to unpack that a little? Yeah. I mean, it’s sufficient, I think, just to say that the law on whether a school can search a phone or conduct any search in a school is separate from the question of being able to restrict the phone usage in the school.

01:33:21:06 – 01:33:40:02

So just because someone is caught on their phone does not mean that the school officials automatically have the right to take the phone and start looking through it. Right? There is already a pretty extensive case law framework on this going all the way back to the 80s, and so any search of the phone’s content is going to be evaluated under those that case law parameter.

01:33:40:03 – 01:34:00:02

Yeah. And Tim, I think it’s important for our viewers to know you do have a reduced privacy, right. In school. Yeah. On your property in school grounds, I mean, lockers, searches, even vehicle searches that aren’t in the school but are on school grounds. I mean, we see this with drugs and kids having, you know, marijuana and other types of drugs, and they can be made to turn out their pockets under certain situations as well.

01:34:00:02 – 01:34:22:20

So yeah. And so again, for those of you that didn’t know, you do have to reduce privacy, right? When you bring property, weapons, drugs, anything illegal into a school or onto a school property. I’ve seen situations with kids who leave a pocket knife in their in their backpack because they went fishing the day before or, you know, have a rifle in their car because they’re a hunter.

01:34:22:20 – 01:34:41:11

And it must be so common. Yeah, I mean, you I used to see kids coming to high school with rifle racks on their trucks with guns on them, you know, like. And that would be in the parking lot. Yep. Ain’t doing that now. Like, that is big. No no now. So. All right, guys, well, the school guys we want you to kind of take away here.

01:34:41:14 – 01:35:01:22

The school can tell your child when they can’t use their phone. Why? Because the law just told them that they have every ability to do that. But the law also told them that they have to do that. And that’s the takeaway here, guys. The law is a bell to bell band. It doesn’t even give a school that would want to opt out the ability to do that.

01:35:01:22 – 01:35:28:16

It gives schools more power, but it also puts a lot of the onus on the enforceability on the school. But again, to what Tim was just talking about, this is not a, again, you know, overarching ability for the school to now invade their privacy further or access anything whatsoever in their phone. It’s just that the kid can’t be on their phone in school, and they those are two very different legal questions, and they are protections that are deserved.

01:35:28:16 – 01:35:48:26

And I think the law accounted for them here. So we hope this was very informative for you, for all the parents and students and school administrators and teachers out there, any of you who are in this field from an educational standpoint, or any parents that have any sort of, thoughts, updates, weigh ins that they’d like to have, please comment.

01:35:48:28 – 01:36:19:16

We’ve been getting a crazy amount of comments. I almost can’t even keep up with them anymore. But I’m trying. And I know Justin and Tim are also helping out with that, so please keep leaving those comments. This is a hot button issue. It’s brand new. It’s just happened. So we’d like to know your thoughts. And maybe if you leave comments that are useful, it will help educate and maybe give ideas to school districts that now are tasked with putting into place these policies and how to enforce this new ban.

01:36:19:22 – 01:36:35:15

Fail to Bell. Thanks for watching. Now we defend guys. We love it that you watch every week or you listen every week. We love that you watch our shorts. Keep it up and we’ll see you next week. Take care.