Inside the room-by-room battle to enforce Maryland’s classroom cellphone bans

A statewide mandate left teachers without funding or support to police mobile devices, turning policy into a daily struggle.

By: Maria Eberhart

Outlets: Technical.ly

Published: August 18, 2026

Words: 912

Last Updated: 1 month, 4 weeks ago

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For veteran 12th-grade English teacher Lee Krempel, Baltimore City’s recent cellphone ban delivered a brief taste of “teaching heaven.” Then came the burner phones.

“For the first time in years,” Krempel said of the first three months of enforcement, “I’d look up and no students were looking down at their phones — just a completely different world of teaching.”

Once winter break hit, the bliss was over. Instead of turning in their actual phones for …

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