EdLawConnect Blog

Spend any amount of time in a middle school or high school classroom across California, and you will witness firsthand the impact of smartphones on students’ education. In March, the results of one middle school teacher’s experiment went viral. Mary Garza encouraged students to leave their phones on, and turned up loud, during a single class period. The students then tallied each time they received a notification. In one class period, her students received over 300 text messages. The class also tallied Instagram alerts, emails, and other phone alerts. Her students received 32 phone calls during one class period on a typical school day. Overall, instruction was interrupted over 1,000 times in one period.

As schools reopen for the new year, many students will arrive with smartphones in their pockets or backpacks, loaded with apps that can create headaches for parents, teachers, and administrators. Some apps, by design, allow kids to hide images and data, and even the existence of the apps themselves. Many apps cost nothing and require no age verification (or verification via a simple check mark). Depending on ...