The Broward County School Board this year joined the state in banning certain electronic devices, including cell phones, in the classroom to promote mental health and better school performance.

A survey of thousands of students and parents released this week by the school board found that significant numbers of both groups are not entirely satisfied with the new policy. And board members seemed open to the changes — albeit after further study of their impact.

The original bill, CS/HB 379, Technology in Public Schools K-12, adopted in the spring of 2023. Governor Ron DeSantis signed it into law on May 9, 2023, and it went into effect on July 1, 2023. It allows students to have the devices on them in school, but orders teachers and staff to prohibit their use during instructional hours.

“We give teachers the authority to set classroom rules for cell phone use,” DeSantis posted on X after the signing of the bill. “Our students need to be focused on learning, not on social media.”

Broward Schools voted to ban the devices this past summer. The ban includes the classroom, hallways and during lunch.

Under state law, teachers can set aside an area for devices during instructional hours and allow students to use their devices for educational purposes only. Broward Schools allows exceptions to the ban when authorized by a teacher.

After a two-week grace period at the beginning of this school year, administrators began enforcing the effective ban at the end of August.

Students who use any of the devices on the banned list could be subject to disciplinary action – most of which so far have been parent meetings, verbal warnings and some confiscations.

Banned devices include mobile phones, tablets, laptops, headphones, earphones, AirPods, smartwatches and can extend to any device that has internet access.

In a few cases of repeated violations, students faced both in-school and regular suspensions.

High school students saw a huge increase in cell phone violations this academic year compared to violations in 2023 and 2024.

During his meeting on Wednesday, school board members discussed the impact of the ban and how students, staff and parents have responded.

“Not surprisingly, based on what we heard from our students, they were very unhappy with the implementation of the policy,” said Jodi Washington, executive director of Student Services Initiatives.

READ MORE: In Broward, some parents oppose the school district’s cell phone ban

In its survey of college students, about half of the nearly 27,000 respondents strongly disagreed with the restrictions.

In its survey of parents, the vast majority of the nearly 40,000 parents who responded had positive reactions to the ban. About 13,600 parents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the policy.

However, the majority of parents’ responses show that their support for the ban ends with the lunchtime restriction. Many disagree with the ban outside the classroom.

Board members said more time is needed to assess whether the ban will boost mental health or academic performance.

“We can’t necessarily say that restricting use during lunch does or doesn’t support mental health,” said board member Dr. Jeff Holness.

Several board members, including Superintendent Dr. Howard Hepburn, want to see more data over a longer period of time to make more conclusive recommendations about the ban.

“I think at the end of the school year, once we’ve gone through a full school year, once we start to embed some things in the culture, once we start looking at correlative data … we can better answer that question.” , Hepburn said in response. to Holness’s questions.

Regarding the implementation of the ban, students were decidedly unhappy with the results, while parents were largely neutral.

Using an AI summary of responses from other parents and staff, the board identified repeated concerns with the ban.

Namely, emergencies like school shootings and medical issues raised red flags, allowing students to quickly call parents, along with everyday activities like coordinating school pickup.

Board member Dr. Allen Zeman recommended against making any immediate changes to the survey, given the confusion it could cause mid-year and the time it would take to change policies.

“I’m happy to change this for the long term,” he said during the meeting. “I want to try it this year; I want it to measure, measure, measure.”

“I want to make sure that what we’re doing is really working, and if it’s helping academics, as students, faculty and staff have told us it should or should, if it’s improving mental health in some tangible way.”