Public school regulation of cellphone use is now law in North Carolina after Gov. Josh Stein signed House Bill 959 last week.
The new law prompts public schools to develop a wireless device policy that will limit students’ access to their cellphones and other wireless electronic devices throughout the school day. It will require the Department of Public Instruction to submit a yearly compliance report to legislators.
This completes the legislature’s mission to effectively ban cellphones in schools. This particular legislation was once a social media literacy bill aiming to “protect students in a digital age,” but previous failed attempts at cellphone regulation this session forced lawmakers to adapt.
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The signed bill calls on schools to require the regulation of students’ use of wireless communication devices during instructional time, as well as education on the dangers of social media, as was intended in the original legislation sponsored by state Rep. Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke.
Wireless communication devices are defined in the bill as “any portable wireless device that has the capability to provide voice, messaging, or other data communication between two or more parties,” and includes cellphones, tablets, laptops, gaming devices, two-way radios and pagers.
While the bill does not establish a policy itself, it requires public schools to develop their own and specifies that it shall “prohibit students from using, displaying, or having a wireless communication device turned on during instructional time.”
It allows the schools to determine the consequences for violating the cellphone policy, including confiscation and further disciplinary measures as permitted by the school’s code of conduct.
President of the North Carolina Association of Educators Tamika Walker Kelly told Carolina Public Press educators are overwhelmingly concerned about the impact of cellphones and social media on the learning environment. Students are technology consumers, and that doesn’t just stop because they are at school, she said.
“It does cause disruptions that are unrelated to the learning of our students, but more so peer-to-peer relationships in the classroom that spill over because of something that happened on social media,” Kelly said.
“Educators do welcome the level of protecting the learning environment, not only for them as the facilitators of teaching in that space, but also especially for the students, so that they have a chance to engage with one another more authentically through person-to-person relationships, but also that they are able to have that focus on the academics.”
While each school will determine its own policy, the legislation will help maintain consistency in enforcement and potential consequences, Kelly said. It also removes a burden from teachers, who have tended to be responsible for setting and enforcing device policies on a classroom-by-classroom basis.
“This actually takes one more task out of the realm of the educator, gives it to the school district to not only train and equip their school leaders, principals, assistant principals across the board, but also school district staff on how to encourage that enforcement because it allows the educator in the room to teach and not have to worry about policing cellphones in the classroom,” Kelly said.
The bill leaves room for exceptions to the cellphone law, including if a device is needed in accordance with a student’s individualized education plan or to manage a student’s health care and for educational purposes or in the event of an emergency if authorized by the teacher.
Some lawmakers raised concerns about the bill’s restrictions. Prior to the Senate’s vote, state Sen. Terence Everitt, D-Wake, said while he was generally on board with the bill, requiring students turn their phones off gave him pause.
“We’ve spent a lot of time in the last 15 years making sure that we promote the proliferation of handguns and firearms,” Everitt said.
“Now we’re waiting on a veto override so we can get guns in the hands of 18 year olds with concealed carry without a permit. We’re making this state more and more dangerous, and more and more dangerous for our kids at school, and what I don’t want is for some child — we’ve all heard the 911 calls, those last moments when they’re calling for help or wanting a kind word from their parents or some sort of comfort — I don’t want their last moments to be spent waiting for their phone to turn on.”
For that reason, it will be important for districts to engage families when crafting its cellphone policy and create it with these safety concerns in mind, Kelly said.
“Parents and caregivers do really have concerns, and one of the reasons why they give their children cellphones is because they have great concerns around school safety,” she said.
“It’s really important to establish guidelines and be overly communicative with parents around their safety concerns so that they understand why we want to have cellphone free learning environments. But it doesn’t mean that students won’t have access to ways to communicate in case there is a school safety emergency on campus.”
Kelly noted that many schools and classrooms have systems like cellphone cubbies or lockers that allow students’ phones to be nearby, but not physically on their persons during instruction time, which could alleviate some parents’ concerns.
State Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, said this very system at Union Pine High School is what gave him inspiration for House Bill 87, one of the first attempts at cellphone regulation earlier this year.
Social media instruction and cellphones
In addition to cellphone regulation, the bill maintained its initial goal of providing social media education.
All districts will be required to include instruction on social media and effects on health at least once during elementary school, once during middle school and twice during high school beginning at the start of the 2026-2027 school year.
Legislators view the instruction as related to cellphone use, as these are a key means by which students access social media.
According to the new law, the instruction must include education on the negative effects of social media on:
- mental health such as addiction
- the distribution of misinformation on social media, methods of manipulating behavior using social media
- the permanency of information shared online, how to maintain personal security
- how to identify cyberbullying
- predatory behavior and human trafficking on the internet
- how to report suspicious behavior encountered on the internet
- personal and interpersonal skills or character education that enhances individual level protective factors and mitigates or reduces risk-taking or harmful behavior
Bipartisanship
The cellphone and social media bill passed unanimously in the House and with just one negative vote in the Senate. Both chambers have strong Republican majorities.
The governor, a Democrat, praised the bill, highlighting its bipartisanship and alignment with a report issued by the Advisory Council on Student Safety and Well-being, a council Stein organized earlier this year with the intention of focusing on student safety and cellphones in classrooms.
“When teachers don’t have to compete with cellphones for student attention, real learning happens,” Stein said in a press release.
“This bipartisan bill gives students a distraction-free learning environment so they can focus on their education, and it provides a seven-hour mental break from the unrelenting pressures of phones and social media.
“Earlier this month, my Advisory Council on Student Safety and Well-being released its first report recommending this step and outlining best practices for creating cellphone-free classrooms.
“It will serve as a resource for our school systems as they implement these common-sense policies. I appreciate the General Assembly’s work here. Let’s keep working together to set up North Carolina students for success.”
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