New Hampshire Set to Enforce School Phone Ban

New Hampshire could be instituting one of the most aggressive approaches to school phone use in the country, banning personal electronic devices throughout the school day.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte initially called for an entire school day ban in the proposed budget she shared in February. However, the New Hampshire House and Senate initially passed bills that prohibited phones during instructional time only.

During the week of May 26, the House Education Policy and Administration Committee amended the Senate's version of the bill to include a so-called bell-to-bell provision.

While the amended bill still needs to pass the full House and return to the Senate, widespread support from members of both parties seems to be in place for the all-day phone use prohibition to go forward. 

According to the Concord Monitor, the law, which will likely take effect before next school year, will cause many school districts to make significant changes in their policies. Last September, when the Concord Monitor conducted its own informal survey of Concord-area schools, it found that Rundlett Middle School in Concord currently outlaws phones all day. Many other schools have policies that ban personal devices during class only.

“We had people sit right here that were former educators — we had a current superintendent, we even had a student — and they were just begging us to come in and make a law up here in Concord saying no more cell phones,” said Rep. Melissa Litchfield, a Republican from Brentwood who brought up the bell-to-bell amendment this week.

The Concord Monitor further noted that in New Hampshire, the leader of the state's biggest teachers' union, the National Education Association (NEA), is backing Ayotte with the full-day ban. The NEA cited a nationwide survey that stated 83% of the union's members support prohibiting phones for the whole school day.