Student cellphone use is a hot topic for this year’s Maryland General Assembly session, with lawmakers already filing five different bills on the topic in the first week.
The proposed bills differ slightly in language, but most require local school districts to create their own policy prohibiting use of electronic devices during class time.
Some make exceptions for use during lunch periods. Others specify that students should put cellphones in provided storage containers or lockers during the school day. One differentiates high school student access to technology from younger grade levels, who would face more restrictions.
“I think we've reached a tipping point where many legislators independently came to the same decision that phones away all day is the right policy for the school systems in Maryland,” said Senator Jeff Waldstreicher of Montgomery County. “If I were to guess, many of these bills will be combined at the end of the day.”
Waldstreicher’s bill differs from most others, creating a phone-free pilot program in two Maryland counties. He’s partnering with Senator Justin Ready from Carroll County for the proposal.
“Our hypothesis is that phones away all day works both in urban, diverse school systems like Montgomery County and rural, less diverse school systems like Carroll County,” Waldstreicher said. “We hope by having a pilot program in each of these counties, we can show to the rest of the state that regardless of what your school system looks like, this policy can work for you.”
Under the pilot, both districts would choose one middle and high school to participate. School leaders would collect data on student engagement, academic achievement and behaviors like bullying and report their progress by September 2026.
Baltimore County Public Schools launched their own phone-free pilot program this fall. In a December school board meeting, school leaders reported early signs of decreasing student distraction and improving the overall environment.
Waldstreicher says he doesn’t expect much pushback on his bill because of its flexibility.
“The more prescriptive we get in the legislation, the school systems themselves may push back,” he said.
Delegate Chao Wu, whose proposed bill focuses specifically on banning cellphone use in elementary and middle schools, said he anticipates some pushback from parents.
“They say, ‘I want to reach my kids in case there’s a shooter,’ or something like that,” he said. “I personally feel, based on a lot of research, in that situation, it's better for the parents not to call their children. You want to keep [devices] hidden somewhere, make no noise, and if there's any communication that needs to come out, to come from the school system.”
Waldstreicher said he’s seen that parent pushback decreasing over the past few years.
“Parents are starting to weigh the benefits of phones, meaning being able to get a hold of your children in an emergency during the school day, against the very real harms that those phones can cause, including real mental health issues,” he said.
Most of the filed school cellphone bills are scheduled for their first hearings in late January.
