FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — After reviewing research at their previous meeting, the Fayetteville school board voted unanimously in support of joining a class action lawsuit and limiting screen time in classrooms.
Fayetteville Public Schools is now the first Arkansas school district to join the class action lawsuit against TikTok, YouTube, and Meta. Superintendent Dr. John Mulford believes it'll encourage other districts to join as they look to tackle the issue in class.
"We're taking a stance saying, 'Okay, this is a problem' and we're having to pick up the pieces in the school setting," Dr. Mulford said.
A local attorney presented research discussing the potential harm social media has on children and how the companies aren't doing enough to protect them.
"We most recently have more research that shows the correlation between things like mental health issues amongst teens, suicidal ideation, things like that, directly correlated to social media," Dr. Mulford explained.
Educators with the district also conducted their own research to come up with a screen time action plan.
"Especially at younger ages, lesser screen time is important for proper brain development," Dr. Mulford said. "The more a student is on an electronic device, it may actually prohibit learning. And so it caused us to take a step back, evaluate that research, and then make some recommendations going forward"
The screen time committee recommended guidelines to limit the use in class, receiving a unanimous vote at the board meeting. It's only the beginning stages as the board will revise the cell phone policy and the district will decide how to implement the guidelines.
"What we'll see, especially at the elementary and middle levels, is just less time less assignments and instruction occurring through electronic mediums. So kind of getting back to some of the pencil Paper social components that maybe we've lost in there," Dr. Mulford said.
Dr. Mulford said with more data and research correlating cell phone usage with discipline and behavioral issues, they'll be tightening their cell phone policies at different grade levels.
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