The Ontario government is limiting cell phone use in schools and banning vaping starting in the 2024-25 school year, announced on Sunday.
Stephen Lecce, the province’s Education Minister, along with Billy Pang and Natalie Pierre, Parliamentary Assistants to the Minister of Education, held a media availability to share the details of the new policies.
Starting in the 2024-25 school year, students in kindergarten to Grade 6 will be required to keep phones on silent and out of sight for the entire school day, unless explicitly permitted by an educator.
For students in Grades 7 to 12, cellphones will not be permitted during class time unless explicitly directed by the educator.
Further, social media websites will be removed from all school networks and devices, and report cards will include comments on students’ distraction levels in class.
The government says it will provide mandatory training for teachers and new supports for students and parents.
“We have heard loud and clear from parents and teachers alike that cellphones in classrooms are distracting kids from learning,” said Lecce in a statement.
“Our government is introducing the toughest policy in Canada to tackle this issue by cracking down on cellphone usage during class time, as well as banning vaping in all schools. When it comes to cellphones, our policy is ‘out of sight and out of mind,’ as we get students back to the basics by restoring focus, safety and common sense back in Ontario schools.”
On top of limiting cell phone use, the province will also be banning vaping in schools.
Students will be required to surrender vapes, along with parents or guardians being notified of the situation. The government also officially announced $30 million in the 2024 budget to install vape detectors and other security upgrades in schools.
“As students benefit from three more years of uninterrupted learning as a result of the government’s historic signing of deals with all teachers’ unions, the government is taking further action to go back-to-basics by combating the negative impact mobile devices, social media and vaping are having on in-class learning,” read a release from the Ontario government.
Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s chief medical officer of health, said in the statement that the vaping ban in schools will help protect students from “preventable threats.”
Ontario is seeing a growing number of youth in Grades 7 through 12 reporting using vaping products that “contain and emit many toxic substances,” Moore said in a statement.
“These products can affect the respiratory, immune and cardiovascular systems, and nicotine in these products is particularly harmful to youth brain development.”
The government also says it investing $17.5 million in “new wrap-around supports for student mental health and parent engagement.”
The budget includes $15 million to provide supports for students at risk of addictive behaviours, and $1 million to partner with School Mental Health Ontario to develop webinars and resources targeted to parents and students across the province to learn how to talk about the adverse effects of vaping and excessive cellphone usage.
$1.5 million will be allocated to to Parent Involvement Committees and students to run local prevention campaigns to help deter vaping and cellphone distractions
Both the Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Board have been looking at implementing their own rules around the use of cell phones in schools.
The TDSB banned cell phones in 2007 but reversed the decision in 2011 over concerns about equity because some students couldn’t afford laptops and needed their phones to access the internet.
At at meeting in February, the TDSB said the ambiguity over a cellphone policy had led to problematic usage by students to the detriment of their educations and mental health. They were looking at a policy that aims to strike a better balance between the educational use of phones and enabling students to stay focused in class.
Last month, the TDSB and TCDSB joined the Peel District School Board and Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and launched a joint $4.5 billion lawsuit against social media giants TikTok, Meta Inc. and Snapchat for “disrupting student learning and the education system.” They claim the influence of social media on today’s youth at school has led to pervasive problems such as distraction, social withdrawal, cyberbullying, and mental health challenges and that the fallout is causing massive strains on the school boards’ finite resources.