Senate Education Committee
February 3, 2025
Senator Jane English I'm calling the Education Committee meeting to order. And we do not have a full schedule today. But first on the list is Senator Dees with Senate Bill 142. Turn your mic on. Both of you. It takes a minute. Okay. There you go.
Senator Tyler Dees Green is good. All right. Good morning, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. Thank you for letting us present this bill today. I'd like to invite to the table my good friend and school board member from a school district in my district, Aric Bergthold. Welcome to introduce yourself real fast.
Aric Bergthold Hello, I'm Aric Bergthold. I live in Siloam Springs. I serve on our school board there in Siloam. But the credentials that really I'm here to represent and that matter more is that I'm a father of four children in our public schools, ages 11, 13, 15 and 17. I'll let my wife confirm that I'm correct on those. But thank you so much for having me.
Senator Tyler Dees So this bill is an important bill. Senate Bill 142 is titled Bell to Bell No Cell Act. And I think you might have seen in the media and some of the reporting, but this is a much needed bill. We're seeing statistics and data showing our students increase in anxiety and depression, suicidal thoughts, all related back to cell phone use, screen usage, social media exposure. And we're seeing a lot of that happening inside of our school, inside of our school district.
And so just about every school district we have in the state of Arkansas has some sort of technology cell phone policy. But they are vastly different from building to building even inside of school districts. And so what this aims to do is to bring clarity and confidence for all of our school districts across the state, while also providing an opportunity for school districts to put their own personal touch on the implementation of the policy. And so I want to read a few things that may help set the tone.
And I've gathered some data from the Manhattan Institute, a think tank that has worked heavily on this ,as well as some Pew Research and other entities that have helped highlight the need. Here's some things that they talk about. Smartphone use in schools can harm children in at least two major ways. Distracting from the educational experience of students, particularly as it related to the learning and classroom management. And number two, impeding healthy childhood socialization. These two aspects of the in-person academic experience can be fundamental to children's development into well functioning, well-adjusted adults. Local education agencies' authority to restrict smartphone use is justified for potentially two reasons related to these harms.
First, public schools historically operate in loco parentis, which means that when minor children are entrusted by parents to a school, the school has a duty to support the learning and safety of its students. And so it's important to remember that parents are entrusting the safety and the education and the development of our children while they're entrusted into school districts. So I think that's important for us to focus on further. It talks about this. Data and anecdotal observations support these contentions.
Research using granular data that tracked mobile phone notifications found that teens received almost 250 notifications a day on average, with about 25% of those notifications occurring during the school day. One study of students also showed that 90% reported receiving texts while in class and another 86% reported sending texts while in class from students. And then a separate study found that using Facebook or texting while doing schoolwork, can tax cognitive processing capacity that may preclude deeper learning.
Smartphone use and addiction has also been associated with poor sleep quality. I think we all know that sleep quality has a direct impact and may be one of the biggest impacts into learning for our children. And so these things that we're seeing, whether it's sophisticated studies or even if it's anecdotal, I know for all of us, when we think back about our experience in school, if you had an embarrassing moment maybe in your cafeteria where you slipped and fell and you dropped your meal all across the cafeteria, it might be embarrassing for about a day. Students may laugh and have fun with you, but now it would live forever, as things are being recorded. And now cyberbullying is rampant.
And so the impact on the mind of an adolescent mind is not good when being exposed to these types of situations. So we have really, really two charges. One is the academic space to make sure we're protecting a distraction free environment for the student and for the teacher. And then two, we have a charge to make sure we are protecting the adolescent mind and helping them thrive for a well-adjusted atmosphere after school. That's social and emotional intelligence. That is relational skills.
And I think we're seeing now that the experiment of smart phones and social media and screen usage is on the rise and we need to make sure we do something about that. So we've seen the issues. We've seen the data. We've heard from parents and teachers and administrators. And thankfully, in this last year, our governor helped us launch a pilot program.
And I've got some data back from the pilot program from different schools who signed up, with the overwhelming majority of schools voluntarily signed up for this program. The data coming back in the last year has been been amazing. We've seen a reduction in disciplinary issues. A lot of those are related to drug issues. We've seen a reduction in missed assignments. We've seen attendance records improve. We've seen engagement from students increase, according to teachers. And so the data coming back is that this is working.
When we put implementation into a program with a cell phone free environment, we get great results. So I want to make sure we highlight that. But I think it's also important to hear directly from our local school board directors and parents. And so, again, I want to throw it back to my friend Aric Bergthold to share kind of your experience and what you're seeing.
Aric Bergthold Well, thank you for letting me speak, Tyler, and thank you, members of the committee and Madam Chair. So over the past decade, our culture and, by association, our schools have been running an unintentional experiment. This experiment is that we're seen what happens when we give phones to kids with zero boundaries, phones in schools, social media and access to anything that's on the Internet. The results are clear of that study.
So we've seen suicide and mental illness go way up. A lot of these studies that Senator Dees has mentioned show suicide somewhere between 50% and 150% up in young people. Testing scores are way down, as we all know. Data is showing that young people spend an average of nine hours a day on a screen and five hours of those are on social media. So I've seen the dangers of phones firsthand, both as a father and on my service on the board. An embarrassing photo can be sent in seconds. Plans to meet for a drug exchange. Bullying. Countless wasted opportunities to bond with fellow students.
Our school district implemented a cell phone policy last summer to curb the dangers of distractions of phones in class. I've had positive feedback from teachers, parents and students about the effectiveness of that policy. Let me be clear. Our schools are not a replacement for parenting, for good parenting. But we should be making sound, data driven decisions for them while they're in our care. Teachers tell me they don't want to be the bad guys in this fight.
When we implemented our new phone policy, there was a concern about the liability of confiscated phones. Some of these phones are $500 to $800 to $900. So there's some concern with that with confiscating phones. I'm happy to see both of those concerns addressed in this bill. I would appreciate your help in providing a safe, phone free environment in our schools, where kids are able to focus on learning, building social skills and being kids. Thank you.
Senator Tyler Dees So I want to highlight some specifics about the bill. You have the bill in front of you and it's titled Bell to Bell No Cell Act, because it's very simple that our goal is to, from the start of the day to the end of the day, that we'll have a limited or no phone environment. However, inside the bill, you'll see that there is the ability for each school district to have input on the implementation process.
So there's local control for the ability for a school district to find what works for them. For example, some school districts may want a pouch system. Some school districts may want lockers. Some school districts may want off and away in your backpacks. They may have cubbies in classrooms. There's all sorts of different versions. And each school district should have the ability to decide what works best for them.
And same with student discipline. Each school district should have input on what that looks like. And so we've we've given the ability for that. We just kind of set the parameters out there. Also, we've set clear exceptions. We know many students that have medical needs, documented medical needs, or they need traceability and tracking with technology.
And so we're going to make sure there's exceptions for those cases, as well as emergency situations and the rarity of fires or tornadoes. There's an ability for schools to have exceptions in their policy. So we can go into more details on those. But I want to make sure we leave time for ample questions as we work through this. But thank you for letting us present this bill and stand ready for questions.
Senator Jane English Do we have questions from the committee? Senator Sullivan.
Senator Dan Sullivan So I notice that possession, you're leaving what possession means up to the school. So they get to define that as they choose, as I think you mentioned, a backpack or a cubby or something. So a school can set that criteria?
Senator Tyler Dees Absolutely. Yes, Senator Sullivan. That was very intentional. I can tell you, we've been working on this bill for well over a year. And frankly, we've had multiple drafts. And I think some of the earlier drafts were much more restrictive where we set the policies for the school districts. And that didn't feel right. As we went back and talked with multiple superintendents and administrators and teachers, we found that there needs to be a little bit more autonomy in how they run their schools. All we're saying is that it has to be bell to bell, no cell. But they get to decide what that looks like for their school district.
Senator Jane English Senator Bryant.
Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Senator Dees, for spearheading this. I know from talking to you and talking to other individuals that the pilot program seemed to have been a success and working through some bugs. I'm sure that influenced some of these sections of code. I think to follow on Senator Sullivan's ask on local school systems set their own policies based on limitations of what's in the bill.
But it also says that DESE will have the ability for review and approval or disapproval. And then on the back, we obviously give them the rules, give them the ability to promulgate the rules that govern such approval or disapproval. If a school system that has a unique situation to where they feel that DESE is to too much bureaucracy, too much government, what avenue could a parent have to petition DESE to allow a certain policy that works for that school system to approve?
Senator Tyler Dees Well, great question. And thankfully, we have a direct democracy process where all of us in this room have the ability to be a part of that process, all senators and all House members. There are ALC and rules promulgation process we'll have complete [coughing]. So if there is anything that is overbearing or out of line, we will all be able to work directly for our school districts back to DESE to make sure that nothing is overbearing.
Senator Joshua Bryant And thank you for the answer. I know while it sounds easy to say, sometimes that is a very difficult process. Do you see that the State Board of Education will have direct input in this process or we can petition our State Board of Education?
Senator Tyler Dees I do. I believe this will be a very open feedback process. I think the only concern is if there is a school district that is just not in compliance, then that's why there's this final approval process. I think if anybody is following the legislative intent, there will be no issues with any school district following this.
Senator Joshua Bryant So if you have a school district that just refuses to follow and they're disapproved for their policy and they're just continuing to act on their own interest to their own citizens, do we just remove their accreditation? Is it state take over? What's the next step?
Senator Tyler Dees It's the same process if any school district didn't follow any of our state laws that we have. There's a review process. There's a citation. You'll see in the end of the bill, I think the phrasing is it's a citation review of their accreditation.
Senator Joshua Bryant All right. Thank you.
Senator Jane English Any other questions from the committee? We have one person signed up to speak against the bill. If you will give your name, who you represent, you'll be recognized.
Steve Grappe Thank you, Madam Chair and committee. My name is Steve Grappe. I'm with Stand Up, Arkansas. We are a direct democracy organization that's trying to connect the will of the people to the legislators and back and forth so we can work together. Now, I know that there's a lot of things about this bill that I agree with. I think there is a problem in our schools. I have a daughter that's just recently graduated from a rural school, Rosebud.
And there are problems with cell phones in schools. But it has been mentioned multiple times that the school districts want to make these rules and they already make the rules now. And this seems like General Assembly overreach because we need to be looking at what's best for our local communities and letting our local communities make those type of decisions. This seems like in some committees we're talking about, we're going to pass laws to make it for the local communities and take the power away from the state.
And in other committees, we have bills that do exactly the opposite. We need to get consistent. The other thing about this is the inconsistency with just public schools. Why is this not applied to private schools that take public money? If all these things are bad, why don't we get consistent across all schools that take the public money through the voucher system or whatever?
I think it's important also to realize that in rural communities we have less resources, the schools have less resources. And I do know that they say if allowed by the school. But this isn't just about cell phones. All we've heard today is cell phones. But this is tablets, laptops, any electronic devices, phones on your watch. There's all kinds of things. And in rural schools where we don't have the resources, this becomes important. So I urge you to think twice about passing the bill as is, because there are some overreach. And if we're going to pass this bill, let's make it fair for all schools that take money. Thank you.
Senator Jane English Thank you. Senator Dees, would you like to close for your bill?
Senator Tyler Dees Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, members. I know this is an important bill, like we talked about. The statistics show that clearly. And to the questions about local control, I really want to make sure that we reiterate this. Local control is listening. We're listening to our school districts. We're listening to our superintendents, to our teachers, and they're asking for help.
We've got teachers that have said we're kind of going to follow it. We don't know. We've got teachers said, we're going to follow it strict. And the students are left in limbo. We've got teachers who said, I don't want to be that bad guy. Will someone please just make a law on this and just help us get clarity? So local control is listening, and that's what we're doing today.
Also, local control is putting in the bill where they have the ability to be a part of the implementation process. They get to decide what's best for their school district. And then to the questions about should this be applied to private schools. No, it shouldn't be. Just like it shouldn't be applied to home schools. We don't have jurisdiction in making our decisions on what people do in their home school. This is actually what people were afraid of when we were passing LEARNS, that there was going to be strings attached, that we would go in and continue to have policy.
Now I recommend every student and every family adopt this policy and find a school that follows these policies because we know it's important. But we only control what we control. And so this is so important that we have to make sure we put this policy in. But it doesn't mean we go into people's homes and tell them how to run their families and tell them how to run their home schools. And so that's where our jurisdiction lies.
I'll end with this. We do have a constitutional charge to provide a fair and adequate and safe environment for our students. And that's exactly what this tries to do. It's very simple. And I think it's going to be well-received, in fact, just by the pilot program numbers alone. You can see people are aching for this. And so I'm thankful to bring this to you. And I would ask for a good vote.
Senator Jane English Motion. Second. All in favor. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Senator Breanne Davis Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to say thank you for this very thoughtful bill. Russellville was one of the pilot school districts, and I have four children from kindergarten to 11th grade in the Russellville school district. And teachers are literally begging for it. We've had a policy in place for several years, but really looked at enforcing through this pilot project.
And it's really dependent district to district on administration willing to enforce it and tell parents, this is our policy and we're not going to back off. So when you speak to teachers in limbo feeling like the bad guy and some are more strict than others, it's because they need administration backing them up. And in a lot of districts, they don't necessarily have that.
So having this in law, giving them the flexibility to say you can put it in pouches if you want, you can put it in your backpack, letting districts determine that, which a lot are already doing, and they have what works for them I think is really good. You've limited bell to bell. So when you look at extra curricular activities, can they have it when they're out running cross-country around the school for practice and stuff like that? That was a really big debate we had in Russellville.
And I think it's very thoughtful, the way that you put this language in place to ensure that if they're out at the track or wherever practicing, that they have access to their phones. Parents were really concerned about that. So I think it's very thoughtful. You threaded the needle very well, in my opinion, to say we're going to do what's best for students in the school day, and that's making sure that there are as minimal distractions as possible so they can learn and hear what the teacher's saying. But then also acknowledging that there's health.
You know, some students have health issues or IEPs or 50s and that there might be an emergency. And so letting parents have the flexibility to have access to their students when they need it, while also ensuring that they're paying attention in the classroom. I think it's very good. It's very thoughtful. And I appreciate you running this bill.
Senator Jane English Senator Bryant.
Senator Joshua Bryant Madam Chair, this might be just a question, a broad question for the committee. As testimony was happening, I may have missed it. Does this prevent a teacher from allowing students to use it if it's a school issue? So if I'm teaching a lesson or I want the students to do, there are several math programs that assist or facilitate learning through electronics, does it allow them to do that?
Therefore, does the school have to provide that in order for them to use it? Or can they release them to go get their personal device under their supervision to hold it to use? I think it's called Kahoot. You know, there's several different programs that are very beneficial. And I know my son uses it at home.
And so if any committee member has that answer, I'd appreciate it. I just see, 'prohibit the use during the school day,' like broad statement of personal electronic device, which does include tablets and cell phones and pagers except for health reasons, except for extracurricular activities, except for emergency use, except if a policy for the IEP, individual IEP or Plan Development or Rehabilitation Act. I'm just concerned. And Madam Chair, I don't know if it's to ask the sponsor of the bill, if I may.
Senator Jane English Go ahead.
Senator Tyler Dees Yes. Thank you for that question and clarity. I'm happy to provide clarity on that. So, yes, electronic and technology are not prohibited. You're allowed to have technology in the classroom. It just needs to be provided by the school or part of the school system. We're just trying to protect the students engaging with their personal devices so that there's not additional distractions and issues there.
So this is not an anti tech bill. This is individual protection from students things. If it's so important that it needs to be involved, and I think there are things we need to involve and engage in the classroom, but the school district needs to have those, just like we have Chromebooks and other pieces of technology already today in schools.
Senator Joshua Bryant All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. That answers my question.
Senator Jane English Senator Murdock.
Senator Reginald Murdock Okay. Thank you, Senator Dees, for bringing this. Strongly support to be a co-sponsor, actually. I will note it's not a perfect bill. The only issue I have with the bill, and I will be supporting it-- I am supporting it-- is where the money goes that we don't follow. I do feel very strongly that wherever the state funds, we should send those standards and our oversight should go. That's just my opinion on that, strong opinion on that as relates to all the dollars that we move. But again, I support the bill.
Senator Tyler Dees Senator Murdock, I would add that a financial study has been done on this bill. There is no financial impact, according to the audit agency. But I do hear your point. Make sure that we're clear on that.
Senator Reginald Murdock Yeah. I mean, with private and home. That's what I mean.
Senator Tyler Dees Yes, sir.
Senator Jane English Any further discussion? So what is the will of the committee?
Senator Jane English Very good. All in favor? Opposed. Thank you very much. You've passed your bill.
Senator Tyler Dees Thank you, members. I appreciate it.
Senator Jane English Okay. I think we have one more on our list here, and that is Senator Dotson. Good morning, You're recognized.
Senator Jim Dotson Thank you, Madam Chair. Members of the committee, this is Senate Bill 164. And this is a fairly simplistic bill that does one simple thing. It allows the local schools or open enrollment charter schools to either hire an employee or allow volunteer chaplains within their schools. The rest of the bill kind of lays out the process and the criteria for that. But that's the simplicity of it. It allows that option. It doesn't require anyone to hire anything.
They would obviously have to create their own individual hiring or volunteer criteria for their local school district. But it does put in place a framework for, if they choose to have a chaplain within the schools, kind of the criteria those chaplains have to meet in order to be eligible as well as the background checks that they have to pass in order to be within our schools in a position of some authority. More than happy to try to answer any questions.
Senator Jane English Questions from the committee? There's nobody to speak for or against the bill. What is the will of the committee?
Senator Jim Dotson I make a motion do pass.
Senator Jane English Second. All in favor? All opposed? Thank you. You have passed your bill.
Senator Jim Dotson Thank you.
Senator Jane English That is it for today. We will reconvene here on Wednesday. Meeting is adjourned.
