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No state ban on cell phones this school year
With the new school year fast approaching, a vote to mandate a ban appears to have to wait in Lansing.
FOX 2 - The legislature voted last week to ban phones in schools, which would have taken effect this fall, but that vote failed.
While the finger-pointing on that vote's outcome continues,
The backstory:
Now the house GOP speaker Matt Hall says that there is not enough time to vote on a revised proposal and have that in place starting this fall.
"We're not going to have a ban on cell phones in the classroom this year," Hall said.
About 30 school districts already have a ban, but administrators who want the ban have told the speaker's office they need more time to implement it.
Meanwhile State Rep. Mark Tisdale (R-Oakland County) is rewriting the legislation and said he thinks he has enough GOP votes to do it, as he continues to pursue the ban.
"I'm very confident that we'll have 56 votes minimum on our side of the aisle to move this forward," he said.
That means, according to the speaker's office, that there could be another vote on the ban in the house yet this year - but it will not have immediate effect, if adopted.
It was Gov. Gretchen Whitmer who embraced this ban at the beginning of the year and Tisdale believes that she holds one the keys to unlock this prohibition.
"It will simply depend on how strongly the governor actually wants this as an accomplishment as she indicated outlined in her 2025 State of the State," he said. "And if the House Democrats are willing to work with their governor."
Meanwhile President Donald Trump's Health and Human Services director Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has gotten into the debate.
"I spoke with RFK Jr. recently, and he asked us to work on it as well," Hall said.
At this rate, the chance of a cell phone ban going into effect might happen in 2026.
The Source: Information for this report came from State Reps. Matt Hall and Mark Tisdale.