Broward high school students may get to use their cellphones during lunch during the upcoming school year, as the Broward School Board considers relaxing a policy that bans the devices all day.
Right now, all Broward students are prohibited from using their cellphones from the morning bell until dismissal, under a policy the School Board passed last year in hopes of improving mental health and academics among students.
This year, the state Legislature passed a law that makes the ban statewide for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The state law allows high school students to use the devices during non-instructional time, although school districts can impose stricter regulations, such as the one in Broward.
Now Broward’s frequently debated policy is up for consideration again, as the School Board plans to vote Tuesday on the Student Code of Conduct for the 2025-26 school year.
The vote comes after a recent study by Florida Atlantic University found teachers and administrators shared anecdotal benefits to the cellphone ban, but “there was no conclusive evidence connecting the policy to improved academic achievement or mental health outcomes.”
Superintendent Howard Hepburn is recommending the full day ban be maintained for high school students. Board members are divided, but a majority of members — Lori Alhadeff, Adam Cervera, Debbi Hixon, Jeff Holness and Rebecca Thompson — have voiced support in recent meetings for allowing students to use the devices during lunch.
They say the policy has led to inconsistent enforcement and frustrated parents and students.
“Our students are overwhelmed. Using their phone during lunch to unwind and text their friends memes is not detrimental to all students,” Board member Rebecca Thompson told the School Board at a June 24 meeting. “I would like to give our high school students the freedom of their 30 minutes where they’re not structured by an adult, and they can do what they want within legal parameters.”
High school principals also overwhelmingly support allowing students to use their devices at lunch, Lisa Maxwell, executive director of the Broward Principals and Assistants Association, said in a recent email to School Board members.
“Some of these reasons relate to issues around social interactions and allowing some students who use music or other apps during lunch time to relax and serve as means to feel less anxious,” Maxwell wrote.
“Other reasons include the need of some students to contact their parents or siblings to coordinate afterschool activities, or to inform them of plans which may change during the day, arrange for transportation, and general communications with family and friends,” Maxwell wrote. “This helps to lighten the considerable load on the front office staff.”
Maxwell said the lunch ban has also been difficult to enforce.
“It requires enormous resources to enforce a no cell phone policy during lunch time where students may be spread out across a campus and even in the lunchroom,” she wrote.
But the idea of loosening the cellphone ban has generated strong opposition from three School Board members — Sarah Leonardi, Nora Rupert and Allen Zeman — who argue student cellphone use is harming students’ mental health They say they’ve seen great results as they’ve visited high school classrooms over the past year, with students being more social at lunch, even if not everyone complies.
“We have gone over the benefits of not using cell phones during the school day, but I don’t think that, just because people are breaking the rules, we get rid of the rules,” Leonardi said at a recent meeting.
Zeman argues that cellphones are creating mental health problems for students. He frequently cites research from Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University who has attributed social media to the decline of teen mental health and the rise of political dysfunction.
“It is clear that cellphones are causing mental health problems in our American youth. And overwhelmingly, what we tried has had positive results,” Zeman told the School Board last month. “I hope as a board we’re not irresponsible and go backwards.”
But a study conducted by six researchers affiliated with FAU gave mixed reviews to how well Broward’s policy has been working. The team included Maysaa Barakat, a professor at FAU’s Department of Educational Leadership and Research Methodology, as well as educators from several school districts.
The study found a positive impact on school culture and social behavior in Broward, including an increase in student interactions and socialization. One counselor said the ban “contributes to them having better social skills.”
One administrator in the study said students “would sit in the lunchroom and just be on their phones. Now they really do have to speak to each other.”
But the study said many students, parents and school officials felt the roll-out of the policy was haphazard and that enforcement has been inconsistent.
One parent said their son’s school “enforces it to the tee and is super strict,” while another parent said that “every time I text (my kid) he answers. I guess they are not enforcing it.”
The results showed mixed results as far as changes to student mental health. There was “some improvement in peer interactions, engagement, decrease in social media and
cyberbullying referrals and student anxiety,” the report said.
But some students report the ban on the devices has made them feel more anxious. And some parents reported anxiety over not being able to reach their children during the school day, especially if there was an emergency.
Although Broward has seen some gains in student achievement, particularly among the lowest performing students, there was “no statistically significant shift in student achievement patterns that could be attributed to wireless device policy implementation,” the study said.
The FAU researchers recommended the district implement a policy with fewer restrictions for older students.
“Parents were adamant that the policy should not be ‘one-size-fits-all’ in its approach and advocated for high school students to have greater access to phones, most notably
for emergency purposes,” the report said.
“While stakeholders agreed that restricting wireless devices is a sound practice, there is a need to develop a comprehensive framework to support consistencies in policy implementation with considerations embedded for the different school levels and age ranges,” the report said.
The School Board plans to discuss this and other policies at a meeting that starts at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
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