Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on anything these days. That fact makes it all the more newsworthy when a law is passed with bipartisan support. Initially introduced as House Bill 4141 by Michigan House Republican Mark Tisdel and co-sponsored by Nancy DeBoer and Kathy Schamltz, the new law is an amendment to the school code banning smartphones from the classroom.

Anyone who has been alive and remotely aware in the last 20 years has seen the effects that smartphones have had on the world's population, particularly young people. Social media and its ease of access has seemingly done more to isolate people than bring them together, despite social media's original intent. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in schools. The increased ability to network with friends has also come with an increased capacity for cyberbullying and constant in-school distractions. Even when I was in high school over a decade ago, it was clear that smartphones were doing significantly more to distract than aid in learning. The new bill signed by Governor Whitmer aims to mitigate this problem.

The way the bill was originally written, K-5 students would have been completely barred from possessing wireless devices on school grounds, 6th-8th grade students would have been barred from using them (but not possessing them) during all points throughout the school day (including breaks and lunch time), and 9th-12th grade students would have been barred from using them during any instructional times.

After negotiations in the House, Bill 4141 was revised to require the following:

All school districts and public school academies must "implement a wireless communications device policy that prohibits students from using a wireless communications device on school grounds during instructional time."
The implemented policy must have a clear and described enforcement method that is in the policy itself.
All entities subject to the law must publicly post their wireless device policy for community transparency.

The bill also requires specific exemptions that all schools must recognize, such as:

Medically necessary devices (glucose monitors, insulin pumps, etc.)
Devices used as part of an accommodation for disability or special education plan
Devices owned by the district
Teachers can allow student device use if specifically tied to a lesson
Senate Bill 495 was added in conjunction with 4141 to require that districts allow wireless communication device use during emergency situations.

Interestingly, the law also allows for old-school "dumb phones" that can't access the internet. This could increase support for the recent Millennial and Gen-Z trend of "decentralizing." The trend is seeing people intentionally choosing to downgrade to a dumb phone and break the many functions of a smartphone back out into separate tools. For example, rather than having a smartphone that can make calls, send texts, take photos, play music, scroll social media, watch videos, browse the internet, etc., someone following this trend might switch to a flip phone that can only call and text, and also carry a camera for photography, an MP3 player for music, and a tablet and/or laptop for various online activities. The idea is to add intentional "friction" between behaviors that are seen as damaging to mental heath, such as so-called "doom scrolling." The goal is seemingly quite similar to the motivations behind this new smartphone law.

It is worth noting that many schools across the United States and Michigan have already implemented smartphone bans that are as strict or stricter than this new law. The law simply codifies the requirement that all public schools must implement the ban. GLPR has reached out to a few technology professionals in K-12 education for clarification on some of the existing restrictions. Our sources told us that, while it is relatively new, multiple districts in our area have implemented these restrictions. Some schools even go so far as to lock smartphones in badge-released, RF-blocking pouches during the school day to prevent any chance of student interaction with the device. Others have been more lax in how they police their policy, simply requiring that the device stay off and in a pocket throughout the day. Time will tell how school districts who have not yet implemented such a policy will choose to enforce the requirement.

By most metrics, Michigan is near dead last in education. It seems like the proposed solution for this problem has been to throw endless piles of money at school districts, which have, in many cases, ended up in the pockets of superintendents and other administrators. Hopefully this new law, which passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate with both parties, will finally make a measurable change for the better.