Phone bans in Pennsylvania schools are one step closer to being state law, after a committee vote in the state house this week.<\/p>\n
The House Education Committee approved a bill mandating a bell to bell phone ban in all Pennsylvania schools. All Democrats and one Republican voted in favor of the bill.<\/p>\n
Concerns or support for the broader policy has been far from partisan.<\/p>\n
Democrats and Republicans in the committee cautioned at overstepping parental authority and local authority of school districts.<\/p>\n
Many also agreed that schools need consistent, firm rejection of phones and the harm they bring to juveniles.<\/p>\n
Democratic chair Pete Schweyer, who represents Lehigh County, amended today\u2019s bill to give more leniency in the state mandate. Shweyer has been a more cautious voice on the policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand\u2026 a desire to have some sort of uniformity or basic guardrails for all of our districts. It was my attempt to try to thread that needle,\u201d Schweyer said.<\/p>\n
His amendment allows classroom or day permissions to use phones, if teachers and schools plan in advance. It also exempts schools from liability of damages or lost phones, and lines out policy for parents on how to stay informed during emergencies.<\/p>\n
Republican Education Chair Bryan Cutler gave support for a phone ban policy but outlined concerns with Schweyer\u2019s amendment; he wondered if schools who have existing policy should be given more flexibility and cautioned about applying the ban to public and private schools.<\/p>\n
Several Republicans voiced concern at giving phone ban exemptions to students with individualized education plans (IEP), medical needs, or translation help needs. Rep. Roman Kozak, a former teacher, said it will create tension between students who can or can\u2019t have their phone\u2013 and that parents who want their child to have a phone will find ways to get them access with the exemptions. Kozak said it could defeat the intention of a uniform, statewide policy.<\/p>\n
A phone ban bill has passed the Republican controlled senate already, which includes the student exemptions. Senate bill sponsors said this house bill keeps the true intent of the policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phone bans in Pennsylvania schools are one step closer to being state law, after a committee vote in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2288,37,28,5929,30,29],"class_list":["post-180893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bureau","tag-harrisburg","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-capitol","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}