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Many school districts already have cellphone policies but, with pressure building from governors and state legislators seeking to ban cellphones in PK-12 schools, these policies are being revisited, revised, or replaced.

Centering equity in cellphone policy conversations means naming the salience of social identities to how policies are created, implemented, and experienced by different stakeholders. It requires considering possible unintended outcomes that create new or exacerbate existing inequities for some student populations.

How One District Centered Social Identities In Their Revised Cellphone Policy

The Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) recently revised its cellphone policy.  ICCSD enrolls 14,000 students and is located in a midwestern university town. The district had existing cellphone policies that were largely implemented at the discretion of building leaders and classroom teachers. This fall, the Iowa Governor said she will propose “legislation that would ban cellphones in Iowa schools” (The Des Moines Register). ICCSD convened a working group and surveyed parents and teachers as they proactively reconsidered their existing policy.

As the ICCSD began to revisit its cellphone policy, the district was intentional in naming inequities that educators and staff have struggled to overcome. The district considered how a revised cellphone policy might further contribute to such inequities. For example, the district has a persistent pattern of disproportionality in discipline, in particular the over-disciplining of Black students around subjective disciplinary measures like defiance, disrespect, and insubordination (The Press-Citizen, 2021). The district was concerned that a more restrictive cellphone policy would create more opportunities for subjective disciplinary decisions that would complicate their ongoing effort to end disproportionality in discipline. Thus, a key component of the ICCSD revised cellphone policy is that it is not a part of the district’s discipline policy. The revised cellphone policy includes consequences, such as student’s cellphone loss for the day, calls to parents/caregivers, and individualized cellphone use plans. Still, students are not at risk of detention, suspension, or expulsion if they violate the revised cellphone policy. While students will need to go to the office to retrieve a confiscated cellphone at the end of the day, these visits “will not be recorded as ‘Office Disciplinary Referrals’” (The Press-Citizen, 2024). 

In addition to being responsive to the district pattern of over-disciplining Black students, the revised cellphone policy reflects awareness of research demonstrating that Black and Latino students receive fewer warnings from teachers before facing a consequence (University of IL). The revised cellphone policy directs teachers to issue one warning to all students at the beginning of class, “Your devices should be secured” (The Press-Citizen, 2024). The next step is the confiscation of the cellphone. Teachers do not confiscate the phones themselves. They send an electronic notice to the administrative office. Teachers and students are able to stay engaged in learning as an administrative staff member comes to retrieve the phone from the student who violated the policy.

The district also considered other demographic considerations, including age. The middle school cellphone policy is more restrictive than the high school. Middle school students can use their phones during passing and lunch while high school students can use their phones during passing, lunch, and study halls.

In discussing equity implications of limiting access to cellphones, the district considered English Speakers of Other Language (ESOL) students who, at times, use their cellphones to translate for themselves or who provide translation for family members throughout the day as well as special education students who use their cellphone as a learning support. The district also considered ability status and students who use apps to track health markers. As a result, the policy allows for student exemptions when a student’s IEPs and 504 plans indicate a cellphone can support student learning or manage student health needs.

The Equity Considerations in Cellphone Policy Evaluation

District leadership announced in a public meeting that it will collect data about the impact of their revised cellphone policy. The district practice is to disaggregate data to identify inequities. This is vital to identifying whether implementing this policy is creating inequities that undermine any subgroup’s educational experiences. Long-documented inequities, such as the increased surveillance and over-disciplining of Black and Latino students, suggest that Black and Latino students might have their cellphones confiscated at higher rates than students with other racial identities. Even if cellphone confiscation does not count as a disciplinary infraction, it does involve an interaction that pulls the student out of instruction and can contribute to negative school experiences, especially if students feel that a subgroup is unfairly targeted in how educators are implementing the policy.

Simply collecting data on whose phones have been temporarily confiscated and how often will not yield a complete picture of the policy’s equity implications. Students must have an opportunity to share how the policy impacts them beyond mere phone confiscation. It is imperative that districts be intentional in creating a space for students to share moments in which they needed but could not access social support on their cellphone. Districts need to invite student feedback about how lack of access to phones might have prevented them from accessing mental health supports and learning supports.

Centering Equity In Cellphone Policies

Asking key questions throughout the policy process can help districts center equity in the creation, revision, implementation, and evaluation of a cellphone policy. The goal is to ensure the policy does not exacerbate existing inequities or create new inequities. 

The table below offers some examples of questions that might help a district center equity in their cellphone policies. While not an exhaustive list, it does demonstrate the importance of centering the salience of social identity throughout the policy process.

Districts might not get it right the first time. Still, with continued data collection and revision, including refining the policy in response to student and family/caregiver experiences, districts can prevent their cellphone policies from exacerbating existing inequities or creating new ones.

 

Equity Considerations in Cellphone Policies
Identifying District Inequities The first step is to ensure policy writers understand the current inequities in the district, so they can identify potential ways their work can contribute to existing inequities or create new ones.	What are existing inequities in our district? What are specific look-fors that would help us see how our cellphone policy work might contribute to existing inequities? What are specific look-fors that would help us see how our cellphone policy work might create new inequities? What policy processes might we put in place to support our commitment to avoid creating new equities or exacerbating existing inequities as we create a cellphone policy?
Purpose This is an opportunity to name any beliefs, biased perspectives,  or deficit narratives about particular student populations that underlie the call for the cellphone policy.	Why are we creating/revising a cellphone policy? Are we (intentionally or unintentionally) targeting some student populations with this policy? What context informs our work? How is this context influencing our policymaking process? What problem would the policy address? What evidence do we have that this problem exists? How do students currently use their phones during the school day? Are there differences by subgroup (race, SES, ESOL, IEP, 504 plan, etc) in how students use their phones?
Priorities Districts should be intentional in naming whose voices must be included in policy discussions to fulfill the district’s responsibility to equitably serve all stakeholders and populations.	Whose voices should be included in this discussion and why?  Whose needs do we want to prioritize in the new or revised cellphone policy? Who will be most burdened by enacting this policy? What are our intended outcomes? Who benefits most from these intended outcomes? What are ways that the policy might impact different subgroups?   Are we (intentionally or unintentionally) targeting some student populations with this policy? How might the consequences of violating the policy be experienced differently by subgroups?
Equitable  Implementation Equitable policy implementation requires multiple-way communication and policy education plan so all stakeholders and populations can work together to enact and refine the policy.	What are look-fors to identify if the policy is impacting different subgroups in different ways? What kind of professional learning do educators and staff need in order to equitably implement the policy? What kind of communication will students and families/caregivers need in order to understand the policy? Do we have the resources to provide this communication in different languages? Are there community groups who could help us communicate policy details? Does the policy include a process for collecting evidence of effectiveness? Do we have feedback loops that will enable us to be responsive to concerns during implementation? Are we collecting and disaggregating feedback in ways that would help us to identify inequities in how students, parents/caregivers, and teachers are experiencing the policy?
Equity in Evaluation Beyond determining if the policy is meeting its intended outcomes, evaluating the equity implications of a cellphone policy requires districts to proactively search for ways that some stakeholders or populations are being harmed by the policy or disproportionately impacted by it.	Whose voices and experiences are we prioritizing in our evaluation of the effectiveness? Are we disaggregating all data by subgroups? How are different subgroups experiencing the policy and policy enforcement? How would we know if there are unintended outcomes that negatively impact subgroups differently? Does the evidence suggest the policy is contributing to or exacerbating existing inequities in our district?