The Metro: Smartphone ban coming to Michigan K-12 classrooms
David Leins, The Metro June 2, 2026A vast majority of Michigan schools already have a smartphone policy in place, but the details vary from district-to-district.
Michigan will be enacting a statewide school phone ban for students from kindergarten through 12th grade this fall.
Many schools already have some form of phone restriction in place during the school day. Three researchers from the University of Michigan wanted to know what could be learned from different phone ban policies prior to the statewide mandate going into effect.
Justin Heinze, Brian Jacob and Elyse Thulin compared nearly 800 schools in Michigan with phone use limits in place and shared their findings in an article published by The Conversation Detroit. In their article, they examine what different bans districts use and key points to consider when picking a policy.
Eleanore Catolico, editor of The Conversation – Detroit joined The Metro to discuss what Heinze, Jacob and Thulin found in their study.
Read the full article of findings here.
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David Leins is the senior producer of WDET’s daily news and culture program, The Metro. He has produced several award-winning podcasts and multimedia series at WDET including Tracked and Traced, Science of Grief and COVID Diaries, which earned a National Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Innovation. He previously led WDET’s StoryMakers program. David has an M.A. in Media Arts and Studies from Wayne State University, and a B.A. in anthropology from Grand Valley State University with a minor in Arabic. David teaches podcasting at Wayne State University and is an alumnus of the Transom Audio Storytelling Workshop.


