The Virginia Beach School Board on Tuesday voted to bring the district’s policy on mobile phone usage by students in line with the new state “bell to bell” law that goes into effect on July 1.
It does away with an exception for high school students, who could use phones only during lunchtime. The board in December allowed this following Gov. Glenn Youngkin administration’s 2024 executive order calling for “cell phone-free education.”
Students in elementary and middle school couldn’t use phones throughout the day, but Beach high schoolers had access during a 50-minute block of time known as “One Lunch.”
School Board Chairperson Kathleen Brown said the law doesn’t allow for the lunch option to be “on the table” for Virginia Beach.
“What it means for them in high school is they are not going to be able to use their phones during the lunch period,” Brown said during an interview.
An 8-3 board majority voted to ensure the local rules meet the requirements of the new state law. The General Assembly voted to codify the cell phone policy earlier this year, and Gov. Glenn Younkin signed it into law.
Brown said the division will communicate with families about how this will be implemented and on issues such as contacting students during emergencies. As the parent of high schoolers, she added, she’ll be on the lookout for that information.
“While it’s something of an uneasy transition,” she said, “taking (phones) out of the classrooms was a transition, too.”
As in December, recent discussion included concerns about families being able to contact students in emergencies and challenges for educators enforcing a prohibition.
The board also grappled with what precisely Virginia meant by “bell to bell,” as well as some legal language and possible ramifications if the district was found to be out of step with the Commonwealth’s expectations.
Virginia Beach Chief Schools Officer Matthew Delaney provided a briefing to the School Board during the meeting about enforcement of and compliance with cell phone rules so far.
About three-quarters of referrals for cell phone violations have occurred at the high school level, he said, and violations are rare at the elementary school level. Most violations were in the classroom.
Numbers don’t tell the whole story, though.
“We did see kids generally more compliant with the cell phone regulation versus what the data shows,” Delaney said.
School Board Member Kim Melnyk said she was glad to hear students generally responded as desired — “with a little more maturity” — since the earlier changes in Virginia Beach.
“I think it’s going to be horrible for our teachers who are going to be policing our students all over a building,” she said during the meeting.
In an interview, Melnyk said the challenge she meant was enforcing the rule during One Lunch, when students may be in different areas of school, not just a cafeteria.
She said she was glad students can still bring phones in the building, and she ultimately voted with the majority.
“It’s going to be hard in the beginning, but the rising ninth graders are coming from a place where they can’t use cell phones anyway,” she said. “I have great faith in our students.”
School Board Member Matt Cummings didn’t support the change, but he said the board needed to interpret the state’s language and see whether it permitted a localized approach.
Others on the board felt the guidance meant lunch was out.
“Nobody wants to see cell phones in the classroom,” Cummings said in an interview. “I think that’s the thing we’re all united about.”
