NC Passes a Shitty Classroom Phone Law

Baby steps are better than no steps, I guess…?

Here we go.

So, North Carolina’s governor, Josh Stein, signed House Bill 959 into law on July 1st, and as expected, everyone is congratulating themselves for a Job Well Done.

Stein’s the one in the middle. No, he doesn’t wear a tie. Check his X picture below. It’s his thing.

And Stein shot this out on X¹:

Okay - as I’ll get into “cell-phone free zones” — fuck, I was going to try and say like, "Well, that’s up for debate…” or put some positive spin on this, but they’re not. They’re just not. It’s lying to say they are.

Cell phones are still welcome in schools, according to the law, which he had just lifted his pen from at that point². And the second thing about “Teachers can start next school year…”

J. Jonah Jameson is all the teachers in NC, and Peter Parker is all the legislators that “worked” on this bill. And the insinuation that “real learning” wasn’t happening, and now, since government saved us, it will… is a little…what’s the word…oh, yeah - fucking insulting.

Just to remind you, and let new readers know, I teach in North Carolina, in a district that adopted a pretty shitty phone policy last year. I spoke about it here. I prophesied all the problems with it last summer, before it went into effect over here. As far as prophets go, I don’t want to brag, but I’m kinda at Elijah level these days³.

Sticking with the whole crazy-prophet vibe, I am an extremist when it comes to phones in the classroom.

Oh, and before I get going, thanks to The Charlotte Observer for spinning the hyperbole up to about 67:

Illegal! But come on — that’s a terrific hook. I mean, you gotta keep reading, right? Journalism 101.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

A Great Big Beautiful Blah

The law has three sections that affect the internet and phones in schools:

115-102.10. Internet Safety Policy

115C-81.26 Social Media and Mental Health

115C-76.100 Regulation of Wireless Communication Devices

You can read the entire law (link up top) if that’s your kink, but let me hit some high points. I’ll do some cut and paste to make things quicker.

Okay - yes, on the whole, this law is better than nothing⁴.

Internet Safety Policy

The Good: The law states that schools must do “at least” the above regarding internet safety.

The Bad: Nothing, really. Boring stuff. IT’s job. A lot of this is covered by a robust filtering system. Doesn’t do much about the kid watching porn on hislaptop on a hotspot, but whatever.

The Huh?: What district wasn’t already doing this? I get it; it’s nice to have a law backing things up (you know, a decade+ since the internet has been a part of public education), but we all did have this handled.

The Mulling Over: This primarily concerns FERPA and COPPA alignment, and (4) codifies the vendors whose products can be used in schools. I would guess that ChatGPT falls under this since their privacy and data collection is pretty shitty. And of course, this doesn’t do anything about student (and teacher, and parent) data that’s lost when a company that wants waaaaay the hell too much data⁵ for doing what it does is hacked. Looking at you, PowerSchool.

Overall: Nothing burger loaded with nothingsauce. I can’t see how any school board member is doing a spit-take on this, or administrators are high-fiving each other, that Raleigh has finally heard our pleas for internet safety.

Don’t worry, this is a slow build kind of thing…

Social Media and Mental Health

Ugh — page split.

The Good: All of it. Love it — especially (1). Social media is the devil, and time will show us what a huge injustice and horrible thing we did to our kids to put them on it⁶ before they were prepared for its abjuct shittiness. Meta is committing crimes against humanity with its product (and I’m not even talking about the genocide it helped take place), and it knows it. Don’t get me started on TikTok. Recognizing the harms of social media at the state level is a nice, quasi-baller move. My favorite social media study lately is this one: “A Consensus Statement on Potential Negative Impacts of Smartphone and Social Media Use on Adolescent Mental Health.”

The Bad: Nothing, really, pretty much standard boilerplate that I’d say someone’s intern grabbed off of someone else’s bill in some other state’s law or other Education Department/School District’s guidelines.

The Huh?: Again, most schools were already doing this, as part of Social and Emotional Learning programs, but just in case they weren’t, now they have to, I guess? And by “have to,” the law means students will get one lesson (somewhere, sometimes) in elementary and middle school, and two in high school.”

Yes, that will take care of the social media issue. Kill it dead.

The return of the most-used Teacher, Teacher gif!

Seriously? Is that once a year, or once in their elementary/middle and twice in their high school careers? And when? And who does it? I know, these are details for the district level, but you can see the teacher's frustration when non-teachers start saying, “Well, you know what they should do in schools…”

The Mulling Over: Ultimately, this thing is vanilla mayonnaise. Good, but almost too dull to even waste much of a thought on. Ahhh, legislation.

Regulation of Wireless Communication Devices

Oooo. the meat. Okay — bit by bit.

The fact that watches aren’t on the list, but it includes pagers and two-way radios, tells me this thing is just boilerplate that someone cut and pasted without a second thought, and it got through the revision process without anyone catching it⁷.

Thumbs up, folks. Way to have a modern solution for modern problems. This list should include smartwatches and smart glasses⁸ at the very least, along with earbuds, headphones, and similar devices. And would having “as technology is constantly evolving, this includes, but is not limited to…” have killed you?

I love it when the olds try to write laws about technology they don’t understand. I mean, Jesus - my District wrote it better:

1. Wireless communication devices: Wireless communication devices include, but are not limited to, headphones and ear buds, personal music devices, electronic games (outside of classroom instruction), cellular phones (“cell phones”), electronic devices with internet capabilities such as smart watches, and other similar devices.

References to archaic tech aside…

Okay - I’m digging the “at a minimum” — that’s great. I wish I didn’t have this nagging feeling (backed by 16 years in the classroom) that suggests districts may settle for the minimum and call it a day. But — baby steps.

This gives progressive and bold districts the leeway⁹ they may need to take bigger steps, such as preventing phones from coming onto campus or securing them for the entire day, bell-to-bell.

Again, I'm not sure what school district wasn’t already doing this, but hey, the elected officials need some red meat to show their constituents¹⁰. But — you know where this is going, right — “…or having a wireless communication device turned on during instructional time.”

Got it — during instructional time, the devices (including pages, two-way radios, and I’m assuming IBM Selectric typewriters) must be powered down.

Theme and variations.

Commentary: Unless we collect phones, teachers can’t be sure they’re off, and this law says nothing about collecting phones. Oh, I hear you, “They can just put them on their desks and have them off for the teacher to see.” Yeah, there was a whole study on this FOMO thing. If they’re in the room, phones are distracting the student.

Policing that all the devices are turned off is next to impossible.

Onward…

Important stuff on (2) and (3). But (1)’s “educational purposes” is tricky to enforce. What if it’s a shitty educational purpose, like making a TikTok for English class¹¹? If you’re going to allow this in a district or school, it needs to have guidelines.

And the “…for use in the event of an emergency” is there for folks who are sure that the drop-off line is the last time they’ll see their child alive again because the news says that schools are dangerous places, filled with drugs, guns, and gangs¹².

The Old Curiosity Shop

Okay, I get it. Looking at the revisions a bill goes through on its journey to becoming a law is asking to go a particular kind of crazy. What you see with the revisions are any combination of “Oh shit! We forgot to mention that?” or other tweaks and word shuffles (but weird, no one wanted to revise the list of technology…). But there is one revision in this law that stands out for its weirdness.

Initially, the bill (back in April) had this written into it: “Prohibit the use of the TikTok platform or any successor platform on devices owned or provided by the local school administrative unit, through internet access provided by the unit, or as a platform to communicate or promote any unit or school sponsored club, extracurricular organization, or athletic team.”

And then in May, “…and also amends the provision related to the use of TikTok to now prohibit the use of the TikTok application and to prohibit employees of local boards of education from using TikTok for any job-related duties, including classroom instruction or communications or promotions of school clubs, extra-curricular activities, or athletics.”

And then on June 25th, “Amends proposed GS 115C-102.10 by no longer requiring the local boards of education polices on student access to the internet on devices or internet services provide¹³ by the local school administrative unit to prohibit the use of the TikTok application. Also, no longer prohibits employees of local boards of education from using TikTok for any job-related duties.”

I’m no legal scholar, certainly not a student of NC State Legislation¹⁴, and don’t want to whip up any conspiracy theories, but…the hell?

In NC, we’re filled to the brim with government officials referring to “the CCP,” the “ChiComms,” the “RedChinese” in official, on-the-record meetings (lord only knows what they say privately). Was this shot at TikTok in particular the national security refrain that was going around earlier this year¹⁵? Why did it go away? Probably something to do with the problematic nature of singling out a specific app…maybe?

So, now, as a teacher, can I use TikTok if I want to?

Why would I want to, but more largely…weird.

This All Looks Like a Win, Right?

Like, isn’t this what phone-free advocates want? Certainly is — and now North Carolina can be added to the “win” column of a growing list of states that are highlighted as evidence of a growing movement when advocates appear on podcasts.

But that’s the problem. A lot of advocates…well, it’s hard for them to see us down here on the ground level as they peer out of their towers made of stuff that at one time was on an elephant.

It’s not a win, even though in The Charlotte Observer, the NC School Counselor of the Year and member of Stein’s student safety council sure thinks it is: “As I think about the school year ahead of me, it brings me joy and hope to know that my students will have eight uninterrupted hours away from their screens and the pressures of social media.¹⁶”

Wait…what? Is there a different law that she saw that we didn’t?

That's spoken with all the enthusiasm of a guidance counselor who didn’t read or understand the bill she’s referring to, right there; it sure is.

She was probably talking to Stein right before he sent out his Tweet saying that schools are now cell-phone free zones¹⁷.

Again, the high points of my problems with the law mirror my issues with my district’s policy — not what I imagined they would be, but what I experienced. They’re all pretty relevant here.

• Students who don’t power phones off — how do I know? Do I collect them?

• Students who don’t turn their phones in (“It got taken away”), or turn in dummy phones, how do I know?

• “Instructional time” means phones are permitted in the hall and at lunch (and on days when there’s a substitute in the room).

• Being Phone Police (remember, The Charlotte Observer said it’s illegal for students to have their phones on in the classroom, so by enforcing that, I am, by default, Phone Police) is Just Another Thing We Need to Do Every Day That Isn’t Teaching. This will all be on the teachers¹⁸. Since a student with a phone on is now Breaking the Law, I cannot wait to be the first one to call the SRO on them¹⁹.

• Administration will promise big, but deliver small. Not entirely their fault, but any vows of “we’ll keep an eye out in the halls, you get the rooms” should be taken with the biggest grain of salt you've got, as admins dissolve like Mufasa as the year rolls on, and teachers wonder where they went.

• And again, students will need to be reminded of this every single goddamn day because they are addicted to their phones. Weird how no one thinks through how addicts (or teenagers) don’t think rationally all the time. Man, if the addicts in question were teenagers, it would be horrib…oh, wait.

• A kid who has a legitimate need to use the phone, am I the asshole?

I know — any school or district plan will only be as effective as the enforcement. Covered that a while back. Teachers are eternal optimists: we can do anything when looking at the year through the rosy lens of the pre-school year workshops²⁰ and the first few days of the new year.

As the grind sets in, teachers will start re-evaluating their list of 'Just Another Thing We Need to Do Every Day That Isn’t Teaching' and seeing what they can sacrifice for the sake of classroom management, their sanity, or simply because they don’t want to do it²¹.

I’ll say what I said in my evaluation of working under a cell phone policy that’s actually tougher than what the state’s law is:

And overall, my school this year, under the shitty policy felt absolutely no different than the previous years when we were under no such shitty policy. None of the glorious intellectual and “return to teenagers” awakenings that I read about enviously in schools with Yondr pouches happened. So 2024-25 phone vibe = 2023-24 phone vibe. The students certainly didn’t see it as an impediment to keeping up with their screen addictions.

So, What Do You Want, Mr. Know-It-All?

Look, I hope this works for some schools that had nothing and now feel justified in having something. This was better than nothing.

However, if a school district had no cell phone policy at this point in history, I doubt a law would prompt them to create a robust one that covers all the bases, simply because lawmakers said they had to²².

I’m just not sure what this law is supposed to do.

I hope this spurs some discussions between admins who are close enough to retirement to not worry about who they piss off at their district office.

But, I have my doubts²³.

I don’t think this law will have the effect that anyone in Raleigh is thinking²⁴, though I would love to be proven wrong.

So, yeah — what would make me happy?

Sigh. Again?

I want people to take this seriously.

I want teachers’ concerns to be taken seriously. I want the anecdotes from ten+ year veteran teachers about the effects of cell phones in the classroom, and our, “Oh Jesus Christ, get them out of the rooms at any cost if you want our kids to thrive!” warning to be taken fucking seriously, instead of dismissed because we’re just teachers and teachers are never happy.

I want to stop lowering expectations for my students because they can’t perform at the same level that they could five or ten years ago.

I want phones out of the kids’ hands from bell to bell.

I’m an extremist about this.

I want parents to sign on for this as well, not some, but all. I want them to understand what we’re fighting for here. I want an acknowledgment that they bear some of the responsibility of turning their kids into addicts, and act accordingly.

I want other teachers to join in and make a fucking wall with this issue.

I want everyone to stop making excuses for the reasons why kids still need phones during the school day²⁵. If the issues your student is going through, or threatened with, are so severe that they need to call a parent to handle it, I would suggest taking that to the school itself and screaming and screaming until something is done. Find a teacher advocate, an admin ally — we’re not in this job for your child to get tortured on the daily²⁶.

I want our kids to thrive, I want them to be able to think critically. I want them to have attention spans longer than a YouTube Short. I want them to be able to engage with other people in person. I want them to be able to live their life without a soundtrack.

I want us all to demand more and demand better for our kids. I want us to stop settling for shit we know is wrong.

I want any legislators who accidentally stumble across this article to feel some shame about the weak-sauce-ness of this bill, but I think that having the capacity to feel shame is something that disqualifies you from public office these days.

Thanks for reading.

1. For the horribleness that Twitter/X is supposed to be, I always get taken aback when I see people, especially Democrats, posting on it, like nothing ever happened, and the guy who owns it didn’t try his best to gut tons of things that benefited the public good while enriching himself.

2. Come on, Josh Stein’s social media intern — do better.

3. My critics are hoping the UFO will come and take me up soon, just like it did for the old guy.

4. I’ve said something nice, so that’s my ticket in the door.

5. And it’s given freely without so much as a “wait just a second here…” by a district.

6. Yeah, we put them on it. What, you think that adults addicted to it, and the ease with which we allow them, or that they could get accounts, they actually had a choice? They’re kids, for Christ’s sake. They were going to get on it and get addicted to it just like you.

7. This is a brown M&M thing. In short, if they’re showing that they couldn’t be bothered with this laughable screw-up or pay attention to details, what else did they skimp on? Oh, there are a few...

8. Students will try to use them this year to cheat on the online versions of AP and IB tests, as well as any other online test. Bank on it.

9. A girl can dream that such things exist, can’t she?

10. This was bipartisan, so everyone gets to feel good about it.

11. Hey kids, social media is bad! But remember, your ‘A day in the life of me, Jay Gatsby’ TikTok is due Friday by the end of the day!”

12. They’re not, but the worry that they are keeps you fearful and watching the news, doesn’t it? Almost like someone planned things out that way. Huh.

13. Typo. Brown M&Ms again. I mean, couldn’t they have at least run this through ChatGPT?

14. If such things exist.

15. A Republican initially proposed this bill, and maybe they were just trying to score some points by wagging their tail and panting at Trump, but now he’s talking about a Big Beautiful (U.S.) Buyout of ByteDance, maybe such genuflecting isn’t needed? .

16. I don’t want to tell her. You tell her — somethingsomethingsomething, halls, lunches, sneaking phones, somethingsomethingsomething.

17. Brown M&Ms. Read and understand the damn bill, please. It’s four pages.

18. Fuck man, I’m still trying to be a halfway decent counselor from when I was told that we’d be doing SEL groups. I just want to teach science.

19. I am more than half serious here. This is a law, let’s test it. I wonder if my district is ready for that challenge.

20. Who wants to do an icebreaker? Everyone, up and divide yourselves into groups based on what animal you’d like to be, great - and now, let’s do who traveled the farthest this summer! FML.

21. Hey - just doing the math, if you’ve got 70+ teachers, they can’t all be winners.

22. Superintendent Clifton James: “Ooooooowheee! Lookee here, ‘dem boys up in Rawlee are tellin us we gotta have a policy about these cell phones in our schools. Damn woke politicians, never worried about the working class…but we’ll get right on that now - Rhonda Lee, order me up some of them Yondr bags!”” (adjusts caps, scratches belly, gently caresses gun) [Aaaaaand…scene]

23. And I hate being this guy. I really do.

24. If anyone in Raleigh is thinking about this anymore. I mean…moths and candles, yeah? Crows and shiny things. They’ve moved on thinking this was a Job Well Done.

25. Yeah, I know — they may be shot by a shooter, and having a phone would be the only chance they get to say goodbye to their parents. I covered this here. I respectfully disagree with the entire premise.

26. But also, be open and listen to us. During the school year, we spend more time with your child than you do. We have insights you may not have, or may not want to believe.