Louisiana Student Wants to Stop Cell Phone Ban in Schools

SHREVEPORT, LA - A teenager in Louisiana wants to stop the ban of cell phones in school. In fact, this youngster has started a petition to overturn the ban.

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Emma Grace Hodge is a freshman at Walker High freshman has started a petition against the statewide ban on cell phones in schools.

But she will be fighting an uphill fight. Proponents of the ban say phones distract students in the classroom and cause all kinds if disruptions in the classroom.

But Hodge says the ban, which is now in effect in all public schools is unnecessary since students know when they shouldn’t be on their phones. She says her petition is calling for cell phone use during free time, not class time.

Hodge says:

All the students do understand that we’re not supposed to have it [a cell phone] out during class time because that is our learning time, and we don’t want to take that away, you know, that learning time away.

Hodge says it’s unfair that teachers can have their phones but not students. Additionally, she says, students in the past could use their phones during non-class time with very few issues. She thinks it's not fair to add regulations to what is supposed to be free time.

“During lunch, like before the new school year happened, like at lunch and while you’re switching to different classes, you were allowed to have it out because that’s your free time and you were allowed to do whatever,” she says.

The current law only allows for exceptions in the event of an emergency. This means anyone who needs to contact a student during school hours would have to go through the school office. Hodge says this creates an unnecessarily complicated system, as there’s usually a delay between when schools get calls and when they alert students.

“It [the school] takes action after, like, five minutes of them [parents] calling,” she says. “Whereas if you can have your phone, then it would be a quicker source for them [parents] to get ahold of you.”

If you are interested in reading the petition and following the status, you can click here to see the progress.