Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, August 8, 2025

“This will be the first school year with the statewide cellphone ban in place. As a researcher and mother of three school-age children, I have some thoughts.

There’s only so much you control as a parent. How to discipline. What to feed kids. How to increase their independence. How to help build character. There are cottage industries to help parents turn each of these dials. Name the child-rearing issue and I promise there’s a podcast, book and app for that.

But outside the four walls of home is a big, big world. It’s here parents lose control over some of the most basic things. Like whether or not a highly addictive device akin to a drug — one linked to attention problems, mental health issues and reduced learning — is allowed inside the classroom starting in elementary school: aka, smartphones.

Families can have whatever tech controls they want in their home: put phones in a basket in the entryway, don’t let your teenagers on the internet in their bedrooms, etc. But at school, it’s been the hungry tech companies, distracted policymakers and spotty whims of educators and school boards that have served as the gatekeepers for kids’ relationship with technology.. . . . “