By Bobby Patrick, VI
Thousands of K-12 students returning to school this fall will face a cell phone use ban during instructional hours.
State legislators, governors, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of its Make America Healthy Again campaign have outlined good reasons for these policies: Removing a distraction impeding learning and student performance. A recent study shows marked academic improvement among students, especially vulnerable students, under cell phone bans. Educators also cite the bans as a tool to prevent bullying and violence.
However, a category of students deserves an exemption for medical reasons. Increasingly, students with diabetes use continuous glucose monitors, sometimes with integrated insulin pumps, with readings sent to cell phones, theirs and their parents’, and alerts of anything amiss.
These students should have access to their cell phones during instruction for this critical medical tool. Thankfully, most state K-12 cell phone bans include a medical exception for students with diabetes and other medical conditions monitored or otherwise aided by smart phone use.
Diabetes monitoring linked to cell phones has been a game-changer for students and their parents.
Before the increasingly sophisticated diabetes medtech in use today, students had to leave the classroom, missing valuable instruction, to visit the school nurse for finger sticks to check blood glucose levels and receive insulin shots. Today’s technology helps keep them in the classroom with their peers. It also allows them freedom to play sports after school or go on field trips without jeopardizing their health or worrying their parents. The student-parent experience for students with diabetes is better overall with the latest connected medtech. The medtech helps maintain good health — critical for learning — and increases peace of mind.
This back-to-school season, my hat is off to the thoughtful legislators nationwide who have enacted school cell phone bans for the right reasons and written in medical exemptions for equally right reasons. Wishing all students and teachers a healthy, productive year.
Bobby Patrick, VI is AdvaMed’s head of state government affairs and alliance partnerships.