Cellphones in the Classroom: The Year’s Top 5 Stories
Classroom Technology

Cellphones in the Classroom: The Year’s Top 5 Stories

By Arianna Prothero — December 19, 2024 1 min read
A duotone photograph of a group of elementary students sitting together and looking at their cellphones
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Cellphones are causing educators significant frustration and stress. In Education Week stories and surveys alike, teachers and principals in 2024 sounded off on how cellphones distract students from their learning, disrupt their sleep, and harm their mental health by providing a constant conduit to social media.

Cellphones are also the source of many behavioral problems: students taking unauthorized photos of one another, recording school fights, and documenting themselves performing dares on school grounds that they learned about on social media.

Because this is a top concern for educators, Education Week has produced a significant amount of coverage in 2024 about this issue and possible solutions.

Following are some of the top reads, ranked here by the most popular first, that Education Week published in 2024 about cellphones in schools.

cellphone distraction policy bans in schools static
Which States Ban Cellphones in Schools?
State policymakers this year started to wade into the cellphone problem, which had largely been up to schools and districts to deal with on their own. In June, Education Week started tracking state-level policies to ban or restrict student cellphone use in schools. Read more.
See Also: School Shooting May Accelerate the Backlash to Cellphone Bans
Mitchell Rutherford, who taught biology at Sahuaro High School in Tucson, Ariz., left the profession due, in part, to students' cell phone usage. Here, pictured at Finger Rock Trailhead in Tucson on June 8, 2024.
Cellphones Turned Teaching From ‘Awesome’ to Exhausting
In this piece, a teacher explains how students’ cellphone use changed his job for the worse, leading him to quit. Read more.

See Also: Student Apathy Is a Big Classroom Challenge. Cellphones Aren't Helping
Sets of hands holding phones. Scrolling smartphones, apps mail, applications, photos. cellphone camera.
How to Manage Cellphones in Schools: Tips From Teens
Students shared with Education Week their unique ideas about how to address the cellphone challenge, such as requiring students to take cellphone etiquette classes. Read more.

See Also: How Students Are Dodging Cellphone Restrictions
A cell phone sits on a student's desk during a 9th grade honors English class at Bel Air High School in Bel Air, Md., on Jan. 25, 2024.
6 Ways Schools Are Managing Students’ Cellphones
Cellphone restrictions at the district level vary widely. Some school systems completely ban use of cellphones the whole school day while others allow students to use their devices at prescribed times. Read more.

See Also: Why Cellphone Bans Aren’t the Cure for Student Anxiety (opinion)
A student takes notes on their cell phone during class at Bel Air High School in Bel Air, Md., on Jan. 25, 2024.
What Happened When a District Did an About-Face on Cellphones
The continuing challenge of cellphones has required many teachers, principals, and district leaders to reevaluate their rules and policies. A superintendent explains why his district decided to abandon its no-ban philosophy. Read more.

See Also: One School Leader Banned Cellphones, the Other Embraced Them. What Worked?

Arianna Prothero
Assistant Editor,  Education Week
Arianna Prothero covers technology, student well-being, and the intersection of the two for Education Week.
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