Parents and educators urge Pittsburgh Public Schools to adopt bell-to-bell cell phone ban

At the Pittsburgh Public Schools public hearing on Dec. 15, 2025, a succession of parents, educators and community advocates urged the board to adopt a districtwide “bell‑to‑bell” ban on personal cell phones during the school day.

Sarah Fishbein, a parent of two Pittsburgh Public Schools students, told the board phones are “distracting and they’re addictive,” and said a ban is about “committing to a quality of education for all kids” and protecting students who have the least family supports. “If something were to happen in any of our schools, I would want my children listening and paying attention to the educators,” Fishbein said.

Several speakers linked the local proposal to state action. Judith Adelson, who said she submitted edits on behalf of Pittsburgh Public Unplugged, urged the board to adopt the proposed updates to electronic policy 02/16 and to align district language with recently advanced state legislation. She said the Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee advanced Senate Bill 1014 and characterized the bill as requiring districts to adopt a bell‑to‑bell phone ban by the 2027‑28 school year. “More than 20 school districts have gone phone‑free with bell‑to‑bell bans,” Adelson said, adding that those districts have seen declines in unexcused absences and disciplinary incidents and improvements in grades.

Gordon Mitchell and other speakers asked the board to narrow exceptions in the draft policy, limiting device use to narrowly defined medical needs documented by a provider and IEP/504 accommodations, and to remove broad instructional or principal‑granted carve‑outs that could be interpreted inconsistently by campus staff. “Ambiguous wording can be an unwelcome gift to school officials who will be asked to interpret the code,” Mitchell said.

Speakers also raised operational questions about implementation. Carrie Thompson asked how the district will handle phones brought to school — where devices will be stored and how students will retrieve them at day’s end — and urged the board to avoid leaving enforcement solely to teachers. Roseanne Levine, a retired nurse practitioner, said exceptions should be limited to documented medical needs and IEP/504 plans.

Supporters framed the ban as an equity policy: parents with fewer resources, several testified, face greater difficulty supervising students’ device use and the district has an obligation to set consistent expectations. Opponents were not present in the recorded testimony; several speakers acknowledged the policy is not a complete substitute for digital education but argued a ban reduces harms while the district also invests in teaching digital citizenship.

No formal board vote or motion on the policy was recorded during the hearing. The district accepted public testimony and noted that written comments and the video would be added to the public record; the hearing adjourned with a special public hearing scheduled for the following day on a separate charter school application.