A group of New Hampshire senators wants to tighten rules around cellphone use in schools.

Republican Sen. Denise Ricciardi, whose district includes Greenfield, Jaffrey Lyndeborough, Sharon and Temple, proposed a bill to prohibit students from using personal electronic devices during the school day. It’s a stricter version of a similar bill making its way through the House of Representatives, which would only ban student cellphone use during class time.

“Schools will have the freedom to tailor policies to their specific circumstances,” Ricciardi said during her bill’s public hearing. “Students will benefit from less distraction, increase social interaction and improve focus on learning.”

The bill also mandates that school districts work with local educators’ associations and parents when writing the policy. Five other Republican senators signed onto the bill, as well as Donovan Fenton, a Democrat from Keene whose district includes Dublin, Hancock and Peterborough.

Victoria Sullivan, a Republican from Manchester, wants more room for local control. She said she takes issue with banning cellphones too broadly and would rather give local officials more leeway to write their own rules.

“I know the intent is the bullying and the distraction, and I completely support that,” Sullivan told Ricciardi, “but I think that there needs to be more room for the district to actually control their policy.”

While discussing potential ways to prioritize student safety, Daryl Abbas, a Republican from Salem, said he has heard from parents who are concerned about how to reach their children in an emergency, and how their child can contact them. Abbas suggested that cellphones could have an undesired effect, endangering students in the case of a school shooting or lockdown.

“Do you really want 20 or 30 students’ phones all going off at once if you’re trying to not let your presence be known?” Abbas said.

Some districts that have already implemented policies like this one and use technology to enforce them. Pelham Memorial School, for example, purchased phone pouches that lock while in the classroom but can be tapped to a magnet that unlocks it in spaces where students are allowed to use their phones.

Rep. Melissa Litchfield, a Republican from Brentwood, wants the state to help districts pay for the costs of implementing these policies, which could include containers like the ones used in Pelham. She proposed a bill nearly identical to the one supported by House majority leadership but would allocate $250,000 to reimburse districts for expenses.

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, subscribe to her Capital Beat newsletter and send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.