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A smiling student with long blonde hair using her smartphone in a school hallway by the lockers
Hoover school officials say the new state law requiring students to keep cellphones turned off and off their person during the school day so far hasn’t been problematic.
On the first day of school, by noon, there were just four students at Hoover High who had to be reminded of the law and school system policy, and there was just one incident of a student with headphones at Spain Park by that time, Chief Administrative Officer Bob Lawry told the school board Tuesday night.
“We’ve got great kids. We’ve got great administrators and great teachers,” Lawry said. “Everybody came together understanding this is a law and it’s for their benefit, and they’ve all pulled together and they’ve unified. It has not been a problem for us, which is absolutely fantastic. … For something of this scale and magnitude and potentially controversial, it went beautifully.”
So far, there have been fewer than 20 exceptions for cellphone use across the school district, with medical exceptions being the majority of those, Lawry said.
The new state law requires students to keep their cellphones and other Internet-supported devices such as smartwatches, earbuds and similar devices turned off during the school day. The law is designed to lessen distractions for students so they focus more on learning.
The Hoover school board’s new policy regarding cellphones and similar devices requires elementary students to turn their devices off and store them in a backpack or purse before they enter the building and keep them turned off until they leave campus.
Middle school students may use their devices upon entering the school but must have them turned off and stored in a backpack, purse or locker by the time the first bell rings and must keep them turned off until after the final dismissal bell. Also, middle school students already were required to keep their cellphones in their backpacks and leave their backpacks in their lockers throughout the school day, so it’s not as big of a change for them as it is for high school students, Lawry said.
There were a lot of questions about the state law’s implications for high school students because the law states that students must have their phones “off person” during the school day. Some school systems have taken that to mean that cellphones shouldn’t even be in backpacks and must instead be left in lockers, in vehicles or at home, Lawry said.
High school students in Hoover don’t use lockers, so they must carry their backpacks with them, he said. To reactivate all the lockers at Spain Park alone would cost $64,000, Lawry said.
Hoover officials worded their policy to say that students must have their cellphones and similar devices “off their immediate person” and are allowing high school students to keep phones in their backpacks as long as they are turned completely off from the ringing of the first bell until the ringing of the final dismissal bell.
There are exceptions for students with special health needs or individualized education plans that require their phones be available, such as a diabetic who has approval to use their phones to check blood sugar levels, but that doesn’t mean those students can use their phones for other reasons, Lawry said.
The state law also does not apply to students’ Chromebooks, which are connected to the school’s internet for instructional purposes.
Superintendent Kevin Maddox thanked Lawry for bringing people together and vetting the school system’s processes and consequences for violations of the policy and working with Merrick Wilson, the school system’s executive director of communications, and schools to effectively communicate the policy to parents, students, teachers and staff in advance of school starting.
“Students in Hoover knew exactly what was expected of the on the first day of school,” Maddox said.
The superintendent said when he was visiting Spain Park High School, he was in the lunchroom and pulled his phone out to look at the time “and this panic ensued.
“All the kids were watching me. I thought I was on a stage with a spotlight on me. I slipped the phone back in my pocket, but I think it has also had that effect on the adults in the building,” Maddox said. “We need to try to model for our kids what we’re expecting of them.”
In other business Tuesday night, state Rep. Mike Shaw, R-Hoover, presented the school system with four checks totaling $62,000 out of his discretionary state funding: $41,000 for fine arts programs, $10,000 for mental health training, $6,000 for Spain Park High School football and cheer programs and $5,000 for Hoover High School’s ROTC program.
The school board also on Tuesday:
- Approved BSN Sports as the provider of athletic apparel for Berry Middle School’s athletic teams
- Scheduled public hearings on the school system’s fiscal 2026 budget for 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9. The school board likely will vote on the budget after the second public hearing.
- Thanked the school system’s operations and maintenance staff, which this summer alone completed more than 140 projects across the district to make sure that schools were ready to open on the first day and over this past year completed more than 7,800 work orders.
- Congratulated the district’s transportation department for being one of six school districts across North America that were named as a “Top Transportation Team” by Transfinder Corp., which makes transportation management systems. The Hoover district this year is implementing a Routefinder Plus system that allows the district’s transportation team to plan and adjust routes more quickly, which helps reduce overall mileage and drive time. It includes built-in safety features such as right-side only pick-up and drop-off and smart stop assignments, and it puts tablets on all Hoover school buses to give drivers real-time GPS updates and any necessary routing changes. Families will also benefit from this new technology, with the option to sign up for email notifications if their child’s bus information changes.
