Gov. Spencer Cox said Wednesday that cellphones in schools are hindering learning and should be banned any time students are in school, whether it’s during class or not.
Last session, lawmakers voted to ban cellphone use but only during classroom time. Now, Cox is throwing his support behind a new bill, SB69, sponsored by Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, that bars cellphone use “bell to bell.”
“Bell to bell is important because school is not just about classroom [time],” Cox said during a news conference at the Capitol. “Learning happens when we’re walking down the hall. Learning happens when we’re out on the playground during recess. Learning happens during lunchtime.”
By banning phones all day in Utah schools, Cox said, students will learn social skills and have “actual conversations.”
“This is how we develop the human brain,” the governor added, “but also how we develop as human beings.”
Last year, Cox signed Fillmore’s SB178 into law, limiting cellphone use in Utah’s public schools, but allowing students to use them between classes, during lunch or at recess. It also allows for school districts to make some modifications and exceptions to the policy.
Cox said at the time that the law didn’t go far enough, preferring the full-day ban.
“Utah is leading the nation when it comes to social media and cellphones and protecting our kids,” he said in April. “I can’t quite say that about this bill yet. Sadly, we didn’t get bell to bell. I’m hoping that we can come back and work on that.”
Fillmore said Wednesday that he regretted not going further last year. “It is high time,” he said, “we take step two.”
Cox and Fillmore pointed to other states — Republican- and Democratic-led — that have passed bell-to-bell bans.
“We have been the model for every other state in this country, with one exception,” Cox said, “and it is this.”
Texas, Florida, Arkansas and New York all have “passed us up,” he said, adding that phone-free schools is “one of the rare areas where blue states and red states actually agree.”
Joining with other Utah leaders Wednesday, Avery Gonzales, a student from Cache County, praised last year’s more limited ban and said more is needed.
“Utah made a great choice,” Gonzales said. “We chose to protect something that students are quietly losing every day: their attention, connection to one another and their ability to truly be present.”
Although some of her peers pushed back against her advocacy for SB178, Gonzales said, it has had a positive impact, allowing students to learn without “constant distraction” and to build connections with other students.
The new bill contains some exceptions when phones can be used, including responding to a schoolwide emergency, using the SafeUT Crisis Line, addressing a medical necessity or as part of a student’s individualized education program.
Fillmore said he also had no issue with teachers using a cellphone as part of their classroom instruction.
Cox said the ban is personal, acknowledging he is “addicted” to the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, and he removed the app from his phone three weeks ago. (Cox has continued posting during that time.)
“The first three to four days that I deleted social media off my phone, every time I grabbed my phone, I clicked to open up X,” Cox said. “[I was] just like those rats that are addicted to the drug water, pushing the little button in the cage.”
It made him sympathetic, he added, to the challenges students face.
“If it’s not a fair fight for those of us that are adults,” he said, “you can imagine the fight that we’re having with our kids and their focus.”