A unanimous vote by the Alabama State Board of Education will allow Alabama school districts to enforce cell phone policies for students.

“This is still a local school board decision, so the local school board may look at it and say, 'No, we're going to let students have cell phones,' but it's still a local school board decision. decision,” Superintendent Dr. Eric McKee said at Thursday’s meeting. meeting.

“With the passage of this resolution, we are asking the board to reconsider its policy and strongly consider not allowing students to carry cell phones during class.”

McKee said school systems that have implemented stricter cellphone rules have seen improvements.

“Discipline is breaking down. Discipline problems have significantly decreased in Montgomery County by about a third,” he said. “I think it’s because of Dr. (Melvin) Brown’s policies and what they’re doing and a lot of the issues, but they think a lot of it is because students don’t have cell phones during the day. ”

McKee said Florida is the only state where lawmakers have curtailed cell phone use in schools and banned their use during class.

Austin Shipley is a staff writer at Yellowhammer News.