Will cell phones soon be banned in Oklahoma schools?
State lawmakers appear poised to take up the issue during the next legislative
session.
Senate
Education Committee Chairman Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, held an interim session last
month to study the issue. “The data is quite overwhelming that these cell
phones, while having tremendous benefit to how we live in modern society, also
have tremendous cost to how people interact with each other,” Pugh said.
The
overwhelming data Pugh referred to shows that allowing phones in schools
creates a higher risk of injury and death, while also making students extremely
uncomfortable and sometimes unable to concentrate. No, wait; that’s
actually what research says about allowing teachers to be armed with guns in
schools, something the state Legislature already allows.
Critics of a phone
ban in schools say it removes a way for students to contact parents in the case
of an emergency. But maybe that’s what the guns are for.
This article appears in Queen of Oklahoma.