Iowa City school board considers stricter policy around cellphone use in schools

IOWA CITY — The Iowa City school board is considering prohibiting student cellphone use during all school hours as data indicates positive outcomes of banning phones during class time.

“I think our work has to continue in this area. We’ve seen some really good benefits from having a consistent policy at our high schools and middle schools,” Superintendent Matt Degner said during the board meeting Tuesday.

“When we talked about this a year ago, we talked about not having a bell-to-bell ban, but I think we can do it,” school board Vice President Molly Abraham said. “I would like to see what our staff thinks. I think it’s a good direction for us to move.”

The Iowa City district began implementing its policy in January, requiring middle and high school students’ phones and earbuds or headphones to be silenced and placed in a backpack, purse, hanging pouch in the classroom or in a student’s locker during class.

Under the policy, a cellphone, earbuds or headphones seen during instructional time could be confiscated temporarily. In middle and high schools, students can use cellphones during passing periods and lunch. High school students can use them during study hall and open hours.

Weekly average violations of the policy have remained fairly consistent through the first trimester this year. However, those weekly averages are down from the first eight weeks of implementation last school year at about 104 violations a week.

Effective for the 2025-26 school year, Iowa law now requires all public schools to have policies limiting student cellphone use during instructional time.

The district presented data to the school board Tuesday showing violations of the policy jump before and after lunch.

There have been about 1,350 violations of the policy in the first 13 weeks of the 2025-26 school year. There are about 7,960 students in the district’s middle and high schools.

School board member Jayne Finch said a bell-to-bell ban is “something the board needs to lead on.”

A stricter ban is something “we owe to our students,” Finch said. “We’re educating and preparing them for life, and they only get this one opportunity to do that. We need to make sure we provide the best learning environment for them.”

“It’s an addictive device,” school board member Mitch Lingo said. “You go to the playground and see half the parents (on their cellphone), myself included sometimes. Sometimes, you just have to throw it in a drawer or in the locker, and that’s the expectation of the school day.”

Lingo said the school board is here to “improve education and set students up for the best future they can have.”

School board member Lisa Williams said the district also needs to ban cellphones from elementary schools. The current policy requires phones to be silenced and stored in backpacks or lockers for the school day, including during lunch and recess.

“The phones are still there, and they don’t need to be,” Williams said. “If we start consistent messaging at elementary school that phones don’t belong at school, when those students transition to middle and high school the easier it will be to go bell-to-bell. They simply won’t be used to having phones in school.”

Williams said the district’s schools are “equipped to handle parent emergencies” if families need to get in touch with their students during the day.

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