OHIO, USA — Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted held a roundtable Wednesday with several Ohio education leaders to discuss the impact of setting restrictions on cellphone use at school.
Educators from around the state who attended the roundtable said that banning phones in their schools led to greater student engagement, fewer skipped classes and less bullying.
Several principals and superintendents said that their school cafeterias are noisy again because students talk face-to-face rather than on their phones.
"When you walk into a building, it sounds like a middle school should sound," said Dublin City Schools Superintendent John Marschhausen. "It's loud. Kids are engaged, kids are talking with each other."
Dublin implemented a cellphone ban at their elementary and middle schools this year. Students at their high schools are allowed to carry their phones but are not permitted to have them out in the classroom.
DeWine is encouraging all school districts to take a look at their phone policies and discuss what's best for their students.
"It's very difficult for an individual teacher to make a decision to ban cellphones in his or her classroom. I think it's much better if it's made at the building level and possibly at the district level as well," DeWine said.
DeWine and Husted said there is nothing currently in the legislature that would constitute a statewide ban or limitation on cellphones in schools.
"This shows different superintendents, different schools from different parts of the state and different backgrounds who have all implemented this and all of them say it works. I would just ask each school in the state to have the courage to take this on and I think the results are going to be very good if they do," DeWine said.