Ask almost any educator in the country and they’ll tell you: the phones are getting out of hand.
“It’s a topic of interest just about anywhere,” Mike McRaith, associate executive director of the Vermont Principals Association, told members of the House Committee on Education last week. “Generally speaking, there’s a more universal understanding that there’s a real risk with digital addiction.”
Growing concerns about the emotional and cognitive impacts of chronic smartphone and social media use among children have led to a nationwide movement to ban personal devices in classrooms.
Already 14 states have implemented some form of a smartphone ban in schools, with eight more recommending that school boards adopt a policy. The legislatures of 23 other states, including Vermont, are actively weighing whether to follow suit. Also, many countries have put in place different versions of a nationwide school cellphone ban, including in Europe, and, recently, Brazil.
In Montpelier, lawmakers are considering H.54, a bill that would require school districts and independent schools to develop and adopt policies prohibiting students from using personal electronic devices, including cellphones and smartwatches, during the school day (the legislation includes exceptions for students who need certain accommodations).
As introduced, the bill would also ban schools from using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to communicate with students, aiming to discourage the integration of social media into education at all.
“I’m in full favor of a bell-to-bell ban,” Rep. Casey Toof, R-St. Albans Town, told fellow committee members Thursday. “I think this is something that’s really important.”
The bill doesn’t dictate how schools would implement the prohibition. Some Vermont schools like Harwood Union Middle and High School have already adopted policies requiring students to place their phones in lockable pouches each morning.
But advocates of the bill have also pointed to more cost effective methods for collecting and storing smartphones, like using manila folders or bins.
“I’m very mindful of the burden of the expense of storage, and that concerns me to some degree,” Rep. Emily Long, D-Newfane, told committee members Thursday.
Although the bill has broad support in the House, its immediate future is uncertain. House lawmakers have considered tacking a phone-ban onto other pieces of related legislation this year, like the Kids Code, a bill that would require social media platforms to adjust their design codes for users under 18. Legislators could also continue working on the bill until next year.
In a written statement to VTDigger, Rep. Peter Conlon, D-Cornwall, chair of the House Education Committee, said the panel was still mulling over its options and considering what the “Senate’s appetite” to pass the legislation this year in any form would be.
— Habib Sabet
In the know
The president of the state employees union accused the Vermont Department for Children and Families of retaliating against her after she spoke out about a new return-to-office policy — retribution that, she said, included secretly filming her during a remote staff meeting.
Aimee Bertrand, the president of the Vermont State Employees Association and an employee of the department’s Economic Services Division, raised the allegations Thursday morning during a meeting of the House Committee on Human Services.
“I’ve been a union activist for over 20 years,” Bertrand said in sometimes tearful testimony. “I have suspected being watched, but I have never concretely seen it.”
Read more about the testimony here.
— Peter D’Auria
Two months ago, leaders from an Abenaki nation based in Quebec urged Vermont lawmakers at a panel in the Statehouse to reconsider a contentious past decision: granting state tribal recognition to four groups based throughout the state.
On Wednesday, leaders of those four groups — the Elnu Abenaki, Nulhegan Abenaki, Koasek Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation and the Abenaki Nation at Missisquoi — appealed to legislators at an event at the Capitol, too, and struck a defiant tone.
“We know who we are,” said Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan group, during the evening panel. “We will never stop being who we are — regardless of what people do.”
Wednesday’s event brought out about 100 people and took place in the same meeting room in the Statehouse as the panel in February. Among the crowd were members and supporters of the state-recognized groups and at least 15 House or Senate members. Lt. Gov. John Rodgers, the state’s second-highest-ranking official, also attended.
Stevens and the other state-recognized tribal leaders urged lawmakers to reject the recent push by Odanak First Nation, the Abenaki tribe centered in Quebec, to revisit the state recognition process, which lawmakers created in 2010. They urged legislators instead to spend time advocating for their own communities’ needs and interests.
Read more about the latest event here.
— Shaun Robinson
On the move
Jonah Richard wants to build a new neighborhood in Bradford, an Orange County town of about 2,800. Richard envisions 15 small “starter home” cottages tucked off the town’s main drag. His hope is to sell them at a price point that has become vanishingly rare in Vermont: under $300,000.
But it would only work, he says, with water and sewer system financing from an initiative under consideration at the Statehouse – the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, or CHIP.
“Without CHIP, this project doesn’t move forward. With CHIP, it does,” said Richard, founder of the Upper Valley-based developer Village Ventures.
If the proposed program can bring in half a million dollars to help cover infrastructure costs – about 10-15% of the project’s total estimated price tag, Richard said – it could make the neighborhood, currently in its pre-development stage, pencil out.
Read more about the ideas behind the proposed program here.
— Carly Berlin
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Corrections section
The Green Mountain Care Board clarified Thursday that the $200 million in health care savings needed to keep health insurance premiums around 5% applies only to plans from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, not all insurers. That was unclear in testimony on Wednesday to the House and Senate health care committees.
