When the Virginia Department of Education released its draft guidelines for cellphone-free schools in August, a lot of Patrick County residents hated it.
“This has to be the most ridiculous, tone-deaf thing I’ve heard in a while,” one person wrote.
Their comment was one of nearly 150 from Patrick County residents opposed to an all-day phone ban submitted over the course of a month to the education department.
The parent agreed that students shouldn’t have their phones out during class periods. But she noted an incident in August 2023, when a man who was later charged with stabbing a woman in a nearby home approached Stuart Elementary School around dismissal time. He was quickly taken into custody by the school resource officer, but the incident is seared into the minds of some community members, several of whom mentioned it in their comments to the state.
“I fully support ‘phones in the backpack’ type policies. … However, until you can guarantee that my children are safe from violence while in a Virginia school, they will have a cell phone with them at all times. Period,” the parent concluded.
Many school divisions will roll out new policies in early January to comply with the state Department of Education’s “bell-to-bell” student cellphone ban that was announced in September.
Until now, school divisions have created their own policies for student cellphone use, with some allowing teachers to decide whether students can use their phones during class and for what purposes.
The statewide guidance was created at the behest of Gov. Glenn Youngkin in an effort to boost academic achievement and limit the impact of social media on youth mental health. It says that students at all grade levels should keep their phones off and away for the entire school day. School divisions are expected to implement the state’s guidance or a stricter policy of their choosing by Jan. 1.
[Read more: Getting used to ‘cellphone-free education’ may be just as hard for parents as it is for teenagers]
The state received about 3,500 feedback submissions about its draft cellphone guidance between Aug. 15 and Sept. 15. Patrick County, which has about 2,400 public school students, had the second-highest number of responses to the draft policy in the state.
It was behind only Hanover County, which has about seven times the number of students.
Analysis of feedback submissions, which were obtained via the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, found that 70% of responses from people who said they lived in Patrick County opposed an all-day phone ban for public school students.
Across the state, it’s harder to judge whether Virginians agreed with the effort to cut off youth cellphone use in schools. For every person who commented that they were fully in favor of an all-day phone ban, there seemed to be one saying that the proposal violated parents’ rights or overstepped local policymaking.
For the most part, the responses were nuanced. Many people agreed that schools should curb student use of their phones but didn’t think they should be completely banned due to safety concerns. Comments from respondents identifying themselves as students tended to include requests to allow phone use during lunch periods.
As Patrick County prepares to implement its new cellphone policy in early January, Superintendent Jason Wood said he’s kept safety concerns in mind. “The number one concern that kept resonating with us is the safety concern” and mitigating family worries about communicating in the event of an emergency, he said in an interview Dec. 18.
The division decided to allow high school students to keep their cellphones off and in their bags during the entire school day. Locking pouches, such as those already used in Danville and now being implemented in Bedford County, were never considered for Patrick County, he said.
“We’re going to allow students to have them as close as possible for an emergency,” Wood said, though he said he hopes a student never feels that they need to use their cellphone to call for help.
He said every classroom in the county’s seven schools has a landline phone that anyone can use to dial the front office or 911. All school personnel will soon start wearing mobile panic button cards that can alert the school resource officer to their location.
Metal detectors have also been purchased for Patrick County High School.
There won’t be a major change for younger students, who were not previously allowed to use phones at school, Wood said. High school students could previously use their phones during lunch and between classes. When classes resume on Jan. 7, eighth through 12th-grade students will attend class meetings to review the changes. Students will also be reminded of how to call for help on classroom phones in an emergency.
Many divisions are implementing “off and away” policies starting in January, but not all have finalized their plans. Bristol is holding off until January so two new school members can weigh in on the new policy. In Roanoke, the school board elected to keep the current policy, which allows high schoolers to use their phones between classes and during lunch. That policy was put into place at the start of this school year, and the board said it wanted to avoid changing it again midyear.
Virginia is one of about 20 states that have implemented cellphone restrictions for K-12 students, either by passing a law or publishing state education department policy recommendations. Educators across the country have raised concerns that students are distracted by smartphones, which can make it harder to maintain classroom discipline. In Virginia, the state guidance cites increased rates of mental health concerns in young people as smartphones have become ubiquitous and social media platforms a part of daily life.
Many people used the state’s feedback form to submit comments of support for limiting student cellphone use during the school day. Comments expressing reservations about an all-day ban frequently turned to safety. More than 400 of the about 3,200 comments in response to the draft guidance included the word “safety.” A dozen people wrote in referencing a school shooting in Georgia that took place while the new statewide guidance was still under consideration.
There were at least 55 school shootings at K-12 facilities nationwide in 2024.
The state’s guidance includes an appendix with best practices for communicating with families during emergencies or immediately following lockdown situations.
“It became very apparent there are general gaps in parent, teacher and school communication resulting in parents feeling like they must communicate directly with their child for both emergency and non-emergency situations,” a September press release from the Department of Education stated.
In Patrick County, Wood said the division will be focusing on “stressing the added layers of security that we already had in place” and communicating when new security measures are implemented.
