is set to become the latest K-12 system in Colorado to ban students’ use of cellphones during school hours, with the Board of Education likely to give final approval to a districtwide prohibition Monday evening.
School districts across the country have implemented similar policies in recent years to curb social media use during instructional hours, as research shows that these platforms negatively affect students’ mental health and academic outcomes.
DPS, the state’s largest district, is considering a “bell-to-bell” ban, which would prohibit all students at both district-run and charter schools from using their phones or other devices, including smartwatches and earphones, during and between classes. The ban would not apply if students leave campus during their lunch period.
If the DPS school board approves the Monday, the ban will take effect when school resumes in August.
“Cellphones are the No. 1 disruption in the classroom,” said Maria Falcón, a DPS special education teacher. “There’s just no control.”
In the past, DPS left it up to leaders at each of the district’s nearly 200 schools to decide how to handle smartphones in their buildings. Most have allowed some level of use, but others, such as Marie L. Greenwood Early-8, have prohibited students from using their phones on campus for several years.
DPS is creating a districtwide smartphone policy to comply with a new state law, but the district would be going a step further than required by banning the devices in school buildings. The law requires K-12 systems to adopt a policy governing cellphone use by July 1, but doesn’t mandate that they ban or limit the devices in school.
Cellphone bans have varied across the state. The adopted one of the state’s first bans in 2019 when the district prohibited elementary- and middle-school students from using their phones during school hours. The ban has since been expanded to high schools.
The DPS school board is moving toward banning cellphones across the entire school day because parents and teachers have made it clear they want a districtwide policy, director Marlene De La Rosa said Friday.
Many schools already have mechanisms in place to limit cellphone use in their buildings. Some require students to put their devices in locked pouches when they enter the building or place them in buckets during class.
Under DPS’s proposed policy, staff at each school would determine how to enact and enforce the ban, De La Rosa said.
“If they have something that is working, that’s all on the administrative side for the superintendent to work with the school,” she said.
The policy the board will vote on is similar to a recommendation made by an advisory committee. Falcón, who served on the committee, said the recommendation for an all-day ban on phones developed because of how difficult it is for staff to respond to student conflicts online.
“It should be completely gone,” she said of phones. “Social media, in conjunction with the cellphones, is just madness.”
DPS parents and other community members largely support a policy that limits cellphone use in school, according to a recent district survey.
More than 80% of community members contacted by DPS supported prohibiting cellphones in class, while 64% of them approved of an all-day ban in middle and high schools, according to a given to the school board during a Thursday meeting.
Parents and school employees were more likely to favor cellphone bans than students were, according to the survey results.
Lundynn Estrada, a junior at the Denver School of the Arts, said she opposes an all-day ban because she worries about not being able to contact her mom during the school day, including in the event of a school shooting or other emergency
“I just worry about the safety of my peers as a student,” the 15-year-old said. “…I understand some of the benefits of it. I don’t really see the potential in it in terms of safety.”
Students also need their phones when they leave campus for lunch, said 16-year-old Aaliyah Garcia, adding that she and her peers use the devices to pay for food. She supports schools restricting phones in the classroom, but thinks students should be able to use their devices during passing periods and lunch.
“I do believe that phones are a necessity in this day and age,” said Garcia, a junior at CEC Early College. “Everything is just digital now and not everywhere is safe.”
The teenager said phones aren’t the distraction teachers often make them out to be and that, in her experience, most students are not on their phones during lessons.
“One rotten apple will ruin the whole batch, kind of thing,” Garcia said of students and cellphones in class.
De La Rosa, the board member, said the district will monitor the all-day cellphone ban and make changes if needed.
Advocates for cellphone bans say such prohibitions will help combat cyberbullying and mental health illnesses in youth.
“Cellphones are harmful in the learning environment,” said Joshua Ewing, executive director of . “…The phones should go away and they should stay away until they leave the school.”
A recent by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that when schools require students to put away their phones, their usage of the devices falls, but disciplinary actions initially increase — and test scores don’t improve.
But, Ewing said, the benefits of cellphone bans extend beyond academics as students are more likely to socialize with each other when their devices are put away.
“(School is) where we learn to develop social bonds with our peers, to navigate conflict,” he said. “That is something that is lost if our students are constantly scrolling on TikTok or Instagram during the school day.”
