Electronic Devices Ban

All personal electronic devices need to be powered off and stored away during the school day. Turning devices off will eliminate buzzing and beeping, which is distracting and against the intended purpose of the Governor’s executive order. 

Student personal devices are expected to be off and away. They can keep their phones in their backpacks, lockers, or preferably, left at home.

High School Students

All students have access to Chromebooks with email. Students and parents can email one another during the day. 

One option is to plan ahead by giving timely check-ins such as updating after-school plans. A guardian may say “check your email by 2 p.m. and confirm you got it by emailing back.” 

For emergency and timely issues parents can call the office. We can deliver messages and bring students to the office for any communication needs.

Middle and Elementary Students

For emergency and timely issues parents can call the office.  We can deliver messages and bring students to the office for any communication needs.

Communication with parents will continue to occur through the district’s mass notification and other well-established communication tools.

School safety experts, including Springfield Police, share that students having access to cell phones during school emergencies can negatively impact student safety for a variety of reasons. For example:

• Student use of cell phones during an emergency distracts their attention from the critical safety and emergency directions given by staff.
• Cell phone use by students during an emergency often results in inaccurate or incomplete information and, in doing so, may disrupt and delay effective public safety response.
• Cell phone use by students can impede site safety by accelerating parental and community arrival at the scene of an emergency during times when officials may be attempting to evacuate students to another site.
• Student cell phone use during an emergency may overload cell tower capacity, limiting critical school and first responder communication.

For students with an individual education plan or 504 plan, parents/guardians should contact their student’s school for more information about exceptions related to their student’s IEP or 504 plan. 

Once the bell rings at the end of the day, all students will be able to utilize their electronic devices, regardless of where they are on campus. 

When the devices are away, students experience at least six hours of screen-free time. Their brains are activated without scrolling, gaming, texting, comparing, or worrying. This promotes an environment that is ripe for learning, connecting, socializing, laughing and living. Research shows grades improved by a letter grade when phones were not allowed.

As of August 2025, SPS policy calls for electronic devices to not be utilized in any manner that may disrupt the learning environment. Several schools already have some form of off and away in place. Instead of waiting for this policy to be updated, the schools will move to off and away from bell to bell at the start of the year, which aligns with Gov. Kotek’s executive order. This will eliminate confusion later in the year when student habits are already formed.

The mere presence of a smartphone, even when not actively in use, can degrade performance on memory and attention tasks, because part of a student’s mental energy is consumed resisting the temptation to check the device. Studies such as those underlying the “brain drain” effect show that having a phone nearby can reduce available cognitive resources for learning. For instance, a review of smartphone bans found a modest but statistically significant positive effect when bans were in place, in part by reducing such distractions: “To Ban or Not to Ban? A Rapid Review on the Impact of Smartphone Bans in Schools.”

Similarly, a meta-analysis of 39 studies across 14 countries reported that student mobile phone use is negatively associated with academic performance metrics (e.g. test scores, GPA) in many contexts. “Smartphones at School: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Educators”
 

Evidence suggests that students who already struggle with attention or who come from more challenged educational settings may benefit most from device restrictions. The Digital Wellness Lab notes that phone-ban policies tend to show stronger impacts for lower-performing students or those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds: “What the Science Says: Smartphones in Schools.”

Beyond distraction, unrestricted device access can enable forms of academic dishonesty, inappropriate content sharing, and cyberbullying, all of which can undermine a safe, respectful learning environment. The ERIC review “Cell Phones, Student Rights, and School Safety” documents how misuse of devices can negatively affect student behavior and learning outcomes: “Cell Phones, Student Rights, and School Safety.”

Removing phones can help teachers maintain instructional momentum and reduce interruptions. Qualitative research suggests that one obstacle to effective teaching is the constant micro-breaks or off-task behavior tied to device use. A well-implemented phone restriction gives educators more control over the learning environment and helps preserve classroom routines.