A new state law banning smartphones during instructional time took effect Jan. 1 in North Carolina public school classrooms. But in one Triangle-area school district, parents say the bigger fight is over the devices schools hand out themselves.

House Bill 959, the Protecting Students in a Digital Age law, requires every public school board to prohibit students from using wireless communication devices during instructional time. North Carolina is one of 33 states that ban or limit cellphone use in classrooms and one of 41 with laws addressing school cellphone policy, according to Ballotpedia.

Three months in, compliance is uneven. A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study released March 31 found only 60% of middle schoolers say they always follow their school’s device policy, and 34% report using workarounds to bypass school filters.

The study also raised a second concern lawmakers had not initially focused on: school-issued laptops and tablets.

“More students are reporting being distracted by other students’ school-issued devices than other students’ phone use or personal device use,” said Dr. Kaitlyn Burnell, director of research at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Winston Center on Technology and Brain Development, who presented the findings to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee.

A parent group takes shape

That’s what Mary Beth Roche has been telling parents and administrators in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools for more than a year.

“The fact of the matter is, the Chromebooks are large smartphones,” she said in an interview with Carolina Journal. “The smartphones are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Roche founded Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Parents for Intentional Tech in February 2025 after an open call to district families drew 35 people to a focus group on screens in schools. 

Fourteen months later, the group has more than 300 members.

The group’s mission is to foster “intentional, age-appropriate use of technology that prioritizes the safety, well-being, and learning of our kids,” Roche said. Most members, she added, are not trying to remove technology from schools entirely.

Parents bring three categories of concern, she said: safety, well-being, and learning. The most common complaint is a values disconnect between school and home.

“I’ve worked really hard to either not have my kids on screens at all, or have very healthy boundaries around what screen time is. And then they go to school, and that goes out the window, and I have no control over it whatsoever,” Roche said.

Attention is another concern. “Multitasking is one of the worst things we can do for learning,” she added.

Parents also worry about gamified learning and the displacement of handwriting and reading from physical texts. Roche and Karl Johnson, an assistant professor at UNC’s Gillings School of Public Health, laid out the case in a January Carolina Journal op-ed.

Johnson, who works with Granville County Public Schools on evaluating district tech policies, framed the issue as a public health question. 

“Things have gone unregulated, a little bit too much, and we’re exposing vulnerable populations, especially children, to forms of disease and morbidity that we can address, and we can address it through environmental reform,” he said in an interview with Carolina Journal.

Johnson said schools should serve as a buffer against the pace of technological change outside their walls. “I would love for education to be this kind of sanctuary from the kind of craziness of how fast technology is changing our world,” he said.

Lawmakers eye stricter rules

Lawmakers reviewing the UNC findings raised similar enforcement concerns. State Sen. Kevin Corbin, R-Macon, suggested expanding to bell-to-bell restrictions banning personal devices for the entire school day.

“That’s very difficult to police when you start that,” Corbin said of permitting phone use outside class but banning it during instruction. 

State Rep. Heather Rhyne, R-Lincoln, pointed back to local boards. “This is exactly why we have boards of education in local districts. We’ve got to hold these boards of education accountable,” she said. 

Slow progress, narrow scope

In Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Roche said engagement with district leadership has been steady but slow. The district’s chief academic officer attended the parent group’s April meeting, and Roche said she meets regularly with school board members and the new superintendent.

“They’re open to conversation. They’re receptive. They are engaged,” Roche said. “I think where we struggle is that parents and children need action faster than the district is able to move.”

Scope is another sticking point. The district has focused on using digital tools more intentionally, Roche said, while parents argue the benefit hasn’t been proven.

“Somehow parents are being asked to justify why their children should use pen and paper over Chromebooks, or to prove the harms,” she said, “yet the schools and [educational tech advocates] have not proven the benefit.”

Roche pointed to a small win as evidence of what’s possible. After spring break, her daughter’s middle school stopped allowing Chromebook use during advisory period, the 30-minute homeroom that opens the day.

“Library circulation rates are up,” Roche said. “They’re just starting the day off on a more positive note. They have their reading, they’re having an opportunity to engage socially, and they are playing games together.”

Parents in other North Carolina districts have begun asking how to replicate the model, Roche added. A Durham mother of four recently reached out about opting her children out of school-issued devices before they enroll.

“Locally, while we’re focused on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district, it is open to anyone and everyone,” Roche said. “If we can help set a model for other districts, then by all means, come on board.”

Johnson said he believes the policy case has broad backing. “I think there is a case to be made from every angle, except for the big tech groups, to say that this is good for administrators, mostly good for teachers, for parents, for students,” he said.

Roche pointed to the long-term effect of small, sustained changes, particularly for younger students who will go through formative years without ever knowing a school day with phones in the room.

“Small changes can have a really big impact,” she said. “I know it can feel really intimidating to think, ‘How can we ever pull this back?’ It can be done.”