Michigan lawmakers push competing plans for regulating cellphones in schools

Craig Mauger, The Detroit News on Apr 22, 2025

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The Michigan House and Senate are floating conflicting plans this week for how to address the use of cellphones in schools with one proposal aiming to ban the devices in elementary grades and another attempting to leave the matter up to individual districts.

The disagreement could be a test of whether Republicans, who control the House, and Democrats, who lead the Senate, can reach a compromise on a priority of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

In February, state Rep. Mark Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills, introduced a bill that would prohibit students in grades kindergarten through fifth from having cellphones on school grounds and ban students in grades sixth through eighth from using phones during instructional time, lunch and recess. For high school students, Tisdel's bill would bar cellphone use during instructional time. His measure is scheduled to be considered by the House Education and Workforce Committee on Wednesday.

But on Tuesday, Senate Education Chairwoman Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, introduced her own bill, which is less restrictive than Tisdel's. Polehanki's proposal would require school boards to develop their own cellphone policies with guidance that they "seek to limit student cell phone use during school hours."

"My goal was to not be too prescriptive," Polehanki said after holding a hearing on her bill Tuesday afternoon.

Both Polehanki and Sen. Erika Geiss, D-Taylor, majority vice chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, voiced concerns about how a cellphone ban would impact the flow of information to parents from their kids during a school shooting.

Geiss said she once received a text message from one of her children that said their school was in a lockdown and "if I don't make it, I love you and dad."

Geiss said Tisdel's bill banning phones on school grounds for students in certain grades would be a "horrible" policy.

However, in an interview, Tisdel countered that he wouldn't want hundreds of parents showing up to a school when emergency vehicles were trying to get there and that he wouldn't want students fumbling around with their phones in an emergency.

"They have to be focused on the trained adults at the head of the room," Tisdel said.

In February, during her State of the State address, Whitmer called for passing "bipartisan legislation to limit the use of phones in class."

"We've seen encouraging data about how commonsense restrictions on phone use during class lead to more learning and less bullying," the Democratic governor said. "Kids listen, raise their hands and make more friends."

Tisdel said he had a Zoom meeting with representatives of the governor's office about his bill in March but hadn't heard anything from them in the weeks leading up to Polehanki introducing her own proposal.

"She's dropped a bill to say, 'We've dropped a bill,'" Tisdel contended. "There's nothing in it."

School boards already have the authority to pass policies regulating phone use, Tisdel noted. In addition, he said, more than 800 individual school districts and charter schools would have to develop their own plans under the Democratic proposal.

Sen. John Cherry, D-Flint, also participated in the March Zoom call with Tisdel. Cherry said he's supportive of Tisdel's bill.

“I think Rep. Tisdel’s goes in the right direction," Cherry told The Detroit News.

Polehanki said she worked with Whitmer's office and the Michigan Department of Education on her legislation. And Jennifer Smith, director of government relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards, testified in support of Polehanki's bill Tuesday.

"The bill would require schools to have a policy but leave the details to the locals to determine what's best for their students, teachers and community," Smith said.

Tisdel's bill and Polehanki's bill would each have to pass the House and Senate and gain Whitmer's signature to become law.

Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs, voiced support for the flexibility of Polehanki's legislation during the Tuesday hearing. In his rural northern Michigan district, many children walk to school and others take lengthy bus rides, he said.

"I'm very pleased to see sort of a case-by-case basis," Damoose said.

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