Almost one year ago, this editorial board lent its support to the banning of cellphones during the school day in Maine (“Of course phones have no place at school,” July 14, 2024).

At the time, states nationwide were taking it upon themselves to confront the distraction to learning posed by the devices (more than 12 have brought in cellphone bans at school) — to say nothing of the harm that sustained, habitual use can do to the mental health of children and teens in particular.

The policy was put on the map last summer by a coalition of nine groups of parents and educators who started swapping notes and advocating for change at the state level.

As we wrote at the time, we agree unreservedly with a ban on phones at school, and only wish “that it did not fall to a group of rightly concerned parents to drive the message home to school administrators and policymakers.”

However, fall there it did, and this year, their message made it to the halls of the Statehouse.

Clamor for a “bell-to-bell” ban on phone use has been rising throughout this legislative session; LD 1234 (for a rule that should be easy to support, adopt and implement, we found the bill pleasingly numbered) originally provided for a ban on phone use in public schools across Maine.

Alas, it emerged last week that it’s not as easy as that.

The resistance of local school districts, squeamish about overreach, led to the original bill being watered down to a far less effective and less responsible version of its former self: now, providing it passes, school districts will only be asked to provide a “comprehensive policy around cellphones in schools by August 2026,” which need not extend to a ban.

The comments of the people and bodies opposed to a statewide policy seem to have no regard for the value of uniformity or consistency, school to school, district to district. They have advanced an administrative (if not philosophical) objection to a live, practical problem — the problem of being hooked to our cellphones — one that few people, no matter their age or their politics, would be able to credibly deny.

“L.D. 1234 ignores that local control and the important work that school districts are already undertaking around this issue,” the Maine School Management Association wrote in a statement. “Imposing this mandate will not allow for community collaboration to tackle this challenge.”

Ironically, it was community collaboration that expedited state-level consideration of the challenge. The proposal was hardly going to set a some vexatious precedent. What’s more, this particular mandate — simple, comprehensive and designed with our young people’s best interests at its heart — is one that anybody tasked with managing a school district, school or classroom should, in these times, be relieved to impose without delay.