Montgomery County Education Assocation (MCEA) praised the school district’s new cell phone policy and the county council’s plans to fund nearly all of the school’s budget request for the next school year.
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) recently adopted a districtwide policy mandating elementary and middle school students keep their phones off and away during the entire school day. High school students can use their phones during lunch and between classes.
Principals can allow some cell phone use during class if it supports instruction, according to the policy that will be enacted with the start of the next school year.
“MCPS’s new policy governing students’ ability to use cell phones aligns with many of the recommendations of MCEA’s cell phone policy working group,” said MCEA President David Stein. “Our focus has been and will always be on how we create conditions that are more conducive to teaching and learning, and we believe this policy is ultimately focused on eliminating distractions that cell phones have introduced in classrooms across this county.”
Justin Fauntroy, a middle school director and cochair of the MCEA cell phone policy group, said, “The uniform expectation articulated by this policy eliminates the confusion that was previously shared by students, educators, and parents and ensures that all schools, regardless of grade level, are operating with the same set of rules.”
However, added Rainer Kulenkampff, a teacher at Walter Johnson High School and co-chair of MCEA’s cell phone policy group, enforcement of the new policy and how it affects classroom dynamics remain to be seen.
MCEA officials also commended county councilmembers and MCPS on a proposal for a one-time withdrawal of $50 million from a county fund designed to for future retiree benefits. The county has that money in a trust for future use but will use it now – $25 million now and $25 in Fiscal Year 2026 – in an effort to balance the proposed FY26 budget.
If adopted in the final budget, MCPS would receive 99.8% of its $36 billion request, leaving a shortfall of $8 million.
“It’s clear that the County Council has listened to educators, students, and families, who have signed thousands of petitions, wrote hundreds of postcards, and made countless calls to the County Council to warn them about the profound harm underfunding next year’s budget would have on students,” Stein wrote in a news release.
“If the Council votes to authorize this one-time spending, which seems likely, it will be clear that they heeded those warnings,” he said.
MCEA’s Vice President Danillya Wilson called the proposal a necessary step that “cannot become the norm.”
MCEA represents more than 14,000 MCPS classroom teachers, counselors, speech pathologists, media specialists and other educators.
