On February 20, Sarah H. Sanders, Governor of Arkansas, signed the ‘Bell to bell, no Cell’ bill,
forcing schools to outlaw any use of a personal electronic device throughout the entire school day, including but not limited to cell phones, wireless earbuds, smartwatches, pagers, and handheld gaming systems. The bill only makes exceptions for school-issued devices and any device that is needed for medical reasons.
According to governor.arkansas.gov the bill was issued for a few reasons, mainly to limit the time students spent on their phones at school, and to have students pay more attention during class. Senior Jacob Cheves thought that the bill failed to accomplish what it sought to do.
“I don’t think the bill matters,” Cheves said. “If kids want to go on their phone they’ll find a way all it’s doing is punishing the kids who were already following the rules.”
The statement that this bill was only harming the student body was shared among many students attending CHS. Senior Jesica Vanderburg felt it was not only harming her social life but also her academics.
“I would check my emails between classes, because it was the only time I had to look at them,” Vanderburg said. “Now, I miss a lot of them and don’t really have the time to keep up.”
While the overwhelming majority of the student body was strictly negative, many teachers believed they saw an improvement in their classrooms, like Academic studies instructor Mary Kastner. She noticed her students were able to get along better than before.
“I think it’s too early to see any concrete proof that it affects the students academically, but I do think my students are being a lot more social,” Kastner said. “It’s nice to see them not trying to focus on their neighbor and a screen.”
Ultimately, the bill was to try and enforce good study habits in students by having their full focus of academic lessons. Principal Falcinelli believed that the bill worked exactly how it was intended to.
“The cell policy gets students off their phones and away from anything distracting like notifications,” Falcinelli said. “It’s in my opinion that students can only benefit from the policy.”
