The governor will be calling for state lawmakers to limit the use of the devices in class because students are spending more time on social media, which can have detrimental effects to their mental health and educational outcomes, her spokeswoman Stacey LaRouche said on Monday. Whitmer's staff released no specific details of the proposed legislation.
Whitmer's office cited a national survey of teachers that found 90 percent of educators support policies implemented at the school district level prohibiting cellphone use during instructional time.
"In Michigan we want to support our local districts in the effort to limit cellphone use in school to improve student mental health and outcomes," LaRouche said in an email.
State Rep. Mark Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills, sponsored a bill last fall that called for local school boards to create policies for smartphone use based on grade, with an outright ban on school grounds for students K-5, a list of restrictions for grades 6-8 and a more liberal policy for students in high schools that allows use except during class. It stalled.
Tisdel said he is happy to hear the governor wants to make the issue a focus of her speech this week and a legislative priority.
"That's wonderful — let's go," Tisdel said on Monday. "I think this is a great thing. I tried to get my cellphone bill in three parts last year ... I'm very happy and very pleased it's on the governor's radar and she sees value in it."
Some education leaders, including Tina Kerr, head of Michigan's superintendents association, said local control remains important to superintendents.
"We just heard about this proposed legislation, and we need to see the details about what the Governor is proposing. Our members will have a lot of questions about how the restrictions would work," said Kerr, of the Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators. "We currently have districts who have already made the decision to restrict cellphone usage, so maintaining local control will be important to them."
School leaders say they are already working to banish the devices from classrooms with the ultimate goal of improving student mental health. Ben Mainka, superintendent of Novi Community Schools, purchased about 2,500 phone storage pouches for students in grades 5-8 as part of a pilot program this school year.
At the Novi high school, students must place the phones into a pouch or caddy system in the classroom. They can retrieve the phone at the end of class and use them at passing time and at lunch. For students in grades 5-8, smart phones must be locked away in a pouch at the start of the school day. Yondr pouches lock the phone during the day with a magnet device. At the end of the day, students can self-unlock the devices and store the pouches in their bags until the next school day.
Mainka said on Monday it was difficult to comment on Whitmer's plan without its specific details, but he says the cellphone policy he has instituted in his schools is working.
"We are huge supporters of limiting the use of screen time during the school day. We have had tremendous success in term of engagement, even the decline of bullying and social media drama that occurs just from students being on their screen during school hours," Mainka said.
Nine states have passed laws or enacted policies that ban or restrict students’ use of cellphones in schools statewide, while seven others recommend local districts enact their own policies, according to an Education Week analysis.
Michigan is not one of them. Due to a lack of a statewide policy on student cellphone use during the school day for its 1.37 million students, each of Michigan's nearly 900 school districts must decide whether to craft its own policy for devices such as smart phones, smart watches and iPads.
Policy changes have been implemented across the board, from kindergarteners and their smartwatches to high schoolers and their iPhones. Other districts are finally enforcing old rules on the books for years.
It's part of a national effort by educators to return a sharper focus to academics at a time when a majority of K-12 schools are still addressing massive learning losses stemming from being out of school during the COVID pandemic. It's also a response to a longtime problem of students looking at devices when they should be listening to their teachers.
According to a Pew Research Center survey posted in April, 72 percent of high school teachers and 33 percent of middle school teachers said students being distracted by their cellphones in the classroom is a major problem.
Most Michigan voters want cellphones out of the hands of schoolchildren during classroom time by nearly a two-to-one margin, according to a statewide poll from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4) released in October.
The findings of the survey of 600 likely Michigan voters showed support for requiring K-12 students to lock up their cellphones during instructional hours by a margin of about 58 percent to 30 percent who were opposed. Specifically, about 37 percent strongly support a ban while 18.3 percent strongly oppose a ban.
Whitmer, who has proposed an $83.5 billion state budget for 2026, will deliver her seventh State of the State Address on Wednesday during which she will lay out her proposals on creating jobs, lowering costs, continuing record investments in education, a statement said.
The address will be held in the Michigan House Chambers in front of a joint session of the Michigan House of Representatives and the Michigan Senate and will be broadcast live throughout the state.
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