OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma kids who enroll in public school during the 20262027 school year will have access to a great deal of technology from their school to help with their studies next year.
But that technology won’t include personal cellphones or the students’ home-based electronic gear.
Last Monday, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 1276, which makes permanent the state’s yearlong test prohibition on students using cellphones and other non-schoolissued electronic devices during the school day.
That bill, most lawmakers said, was a success.
The measure, which was filed last year and amended this year, cleared both houses of the Legislature and was sent to the governor’s office.
Original cellphone ban a test for 2025
“Bell to Bell, No Cell” was pilot legislation in 2025. The measure required Oklahoma school boards to adopt policies prohibiting cell phone use on campus during the school day. Lawmakers said the feedback from teachers, students and parents following the pilot program was overwhelmingly positive, prompting the Legislature to advance permanent legislation that sets up a personal cellphone ban in statute.
The goal, lawmakers who supported the measure said, was to bring the focus back to education and exclude disruptions caused by personal cellphones.
But not every public school student was thrilled by the idea. Jeff – who asked that his last name not be used because he feared retribution – a student at Lawton’s MacArthur High School, said he was not happy that cellphones would be banned.
Jeff said he has, in the past, needed to contact a parent because he had an issue at school.
“There’s a lot of negative stuff that happens at schools,” he said. “I want to be able to get in touch with my family if I need to. I know we come here to learn, and I’m all about that, but I want my phone with me.”
Because he had access to a phone, he said, his problem was solved.
Too many distractions, some say
Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, countered that the school day shouldn’t be filled with distractions.
“Making this ban permanent, I think, will tremendously improve the academic focus in our classrooms for years to come,” Caldwell, the bill’s author, said.
Under current law, the statewide school cellphone ban will become optional for districts after the 2025-26 academic year, unless further action is taken to make it permanent. Oklahoma is one of only 20 states that bans the use of wireless communication devices in classrooms for the entire instructional day.
Some Oklahoma districts have prohibited cellphone use for years.
Lawmakers said this year’s bill became part of a universal policy to reduce classroom distractions.
“This legislation is one of the most meaningful bills written during my time in the House,” House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, said. “I’ve heard from both parents and teachers who are grateful for this reform. Hallways are loud again, students are playing
Uno (a card game) at lunch, and they’re actually interacting with one another. This legislation permanently allows kids to be kids, and our teachers to teach in our classrooms.”
Jaaziah Benman, a wrestler and senior at Putnam City North High School in Oklahoma City, said he thought the ban was, overall, a good idea.
“I think it makes Oklahoma better,” he said.
“But I don’t know about how students and parents would take it with their kids not being able to have direct contact with them often, or like, when they want to have contact with them.”
And while Benman said he understood the concern about not being able to communicate with parents, he said a bigger issue is how his fellow students use cellphones to bypass doing real schoolwork.
“I noticed many students right now that don’t really want to do their work,” he said.
“They’re going to use ChatGPT more often on their phone, or hide their phone, or listen to music on their phone and ignore the teacher, stuff like that, like they get quite distracted with their phone.”
And even with a ban, he said, students will find ways to use their phones during the school day.
Benman said even with the law passed last year, school officials began to back off from strict enforcement after a while.
“For a while, they were strict on all the rules of using the phone,” he said. “At that time, you couldn’t even have it in the hallway. No stuff like that. And then they just slowly started digressing, because students still were on their phones, but like, they didn’t use it as much.”
The fewer cellphones, the better the classroom Others, including the executive director of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, agree with Benman. That is, fewer cellphones in class helps the student.
“So, I think this is a wonderful idea from the teachers that we’ve had those conversations over the past year on the success of this pilot program. It’s been a huge success,” Joe Dorman, the OICA executive director, said. “Kids are paying attention to each other. They’re actually having conversations with each other, and in lunchrooms, they are playing more rather than just playing on their phones. By all reports, it looks like the academic success has gone up, and so all in all, I think it’s been a huge win, and it certainly has that merit for implementing fully in schools.”
And while Dorman said students need to understand the type of technology that they will have to deal with in the future, there is also proof showing that kids have a deep addiction to technology.
“I mean, it’s the same addiction of what you see to drugs and other sins,” he said. “Kids have grown more and more reliant upon playing on screens, and that is not good for the social activities of being able to function in the world and carry on conversations at a bare minimum with people.”
And pushing back against that addiction, he said, is a great idea.
Dorman said there is data about the addictions that kids have when their brains are developing and they are playing screens.
“It’s unhealthy,” he said.
He said the data shows that parents shouldn’t park their kids in front of a television at an early age. Parents, he said, have limits on the amount of screen time their children have, whether it be TV or on a mobile device.
“And even as they grow older, there has been a problem as far as kids needing that constant activity of what they see on devices, by playing games or chatting, or just whatever it might be happening,” he said. “It’s an addiction that a lot of parents don’t realize is a true thing out there. And so, it’s getting more and more dangerous where we’re turning out a future generation that constantly has to have their nose in a cellphone.”
Limiting that cellphone use for children, he said, was a great idea.
Benman agreed.
“I just need a little help sometimes in government class with knowing, like, when did George Washington do this? You know, things like that,” he said.
But there’s no need of my phone in classes, really.”
M. Scott Carter is an award-winning political and investigative reporter with more than 40 years’ experience covering federal and state government and politics in Oklahoma. He can be reached at scott. carter@swoknews.com.