Local superintendents applaud new state laws

A pair of new laws that will impact students across the state have the support of superintendents in Berryville and Green Forest.

Act 122 of the regular session of the Arkansas Legislature was recently signed into law by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and is titled the “Bell to Bell, No Cell Act,” banning cell phones in classrooms during instruction time.

Meanwhile, Act 123, also recently signed into law by the governor, will offer a free breakfast to each public school student in the state regardless of eligibility for federally funded free or reduced- price meals.

Each law says school districts are to implement the new policy by the 2025-2026 school year.

“In my opinion, I think they’re both good laws,” Berryville Superintendent Owen Powell said.

David Gilmore, superintendent at Green Forest, agrees, and when it comes to the new policy on cell phones, he said he feels it will benefit students and teachers.

“I think the cell phones are a distraction at school,” Gilmore said. “… Really, we have a phone-free policy anyway, but we do have some kids who violate that.”

Many school districts across the state took advantage of state grants during the current school year to purchase Yondr brand pouches that lock student cell phones throughout the day. While the new law doesn’t require districts to use pouches, Powell and Gilmore said they are still looking into possibly going that route.

“I think the Yondr cell phone pouch would probably help us because it would have the kids locking it inside of that pouch throughout the day,” Gilmore said. “We just didn’t know at the first of the year how well that would work and what the logistics were on it. We didn’t want to cause any burdens on our teachers having to deal with that.

“I’ve checked into some other local schools. For example, Valley Springs implemented it this year and they’re having a really good success rate with it. They have very few phones that get out during the day.”

Gilmore said districts can still apply for the state grant to purchase the pouches.

“It’s still available throughout the rest of the school year,” Gilmore said of the grant. “So, I’m currently in discussions with the board about us going ahead and getting those while the grant is available, so we don’t miss out on that and have to pay for it ourselves.”

Powell said the new law is similar to what Berryville already practices, but he is also surveying other districts about the effectiveness of the pouches.

“We pretty much already have everything in the policy that’s obviously now signed into law,” Powell said. “We may look at making some tweaks or little small changes, but we pretty much already had things in our policy.

“… I have had quite a few conversations with our principals about and we’re looking into it, calling some other schools and talking to them that have already implemented the pouch and see what the positives and negatives are about that.

“… Once we come up with a decision on exactly what we want to do, then obviously we’ll take that to the board of directors. It will have to be approved before we implement anything, but we are looking at a lot of different options. I don’t feel like we have to make a lot of really big changes because we were really already doing what the law is saying we’ve got to do.”

Gilmore said Green Forest parents were about 50-50 when polled on the issue at the beginning of the school year.

“When we were considering the Yondr at the first of the year, parents were about 5050 at the time,” he said. “Now, it’s not quite 5050 with the students, of course.”

When it comes to an issue that can be controversial with parents, students and the community, it’s nice to have a statewide policy put in place that dictates what all districts have to do, the superintendents said.

“Especially when you look at, like schools in Carroll County,” Powell said. “When you’ve got Berryville that does this, Eureka does that, and Green Forest does something else, this makes everyone conformed, doing the same things. It takes pressure off of the administration and school board by having the entire state doing the same thing.”

FREE BREAKFA ST

According to wording in Act 123, beginning with the 20252026 school year, any public school student “who is not a qualifying student … and does not receive a free breakfast through any local, state or federal programs shall be provided one breakfast at no cost during each school day upon his or her request without consideration of his or her eligibility for a federally funded free or reduced-priced meal.”

The new breakfast law will do nothing but benefit students, Powell and Gilmore said.

“As long as they fund it, I’m behind it 110 percent,” Powell said. “My understanding is they’re going to fund it, so I think it’s a really positive thing.”

Gilmore agreed, saying it will help the district keep from going into a deficit as well at times. Both Powell and Gilmore said they’d like to see the law eventually include lunches as well.

“I think all of our students should get a breakfast, and I would like to see that expanded to a free lunch, too,” Gilmore said. “A lot of parents, it’s tough for them to afford to pay for that. Then, school districts, we’re always going to feed our kids. We have some parents who either don’t pay or can’t pay, whatever the reason is, and that’s going to be taken care of, and now we don’t have to worry about that burden because we do run some deficits sometimes when a parent can’t pay.

“We’re still going to feed them. We don’t want to see our kids go hungry, so I’m pleased to see this free breakfast, for sure.”