Colorado Attorney General Announces $50,000 in Grants So Schools Can Curb Student Cell Phone Use

Colorado school districts will soon be able to apply for grants of up to $50,000 to help their students reduce cell phone use during the school day.

State Attorney General Phil Weiser announced the “Smartphone Challenge Initiative” Friday in the Grand Junction High School library. The program is funded by money from the state’s $31.7 million settlement with e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc.

The initiative is the school district’s second grant program aimed at improving student mental health funded with Juul dollars. In June, Weiser announced a $20 million mental health grant program for school districts. Applications for this program are scheduled to open in mid-October. In addition, Weiser recently announced 30 grants — also funded with Juul settlement money — to help youth quit vaping.

Weiser said in an interview with Chalkbeat that many schools don’t have policies on phone use or don’t enforce the ones they have.

“We want schools to face this reality that phones, in many cases, are harmful to learning and harmful, when kids use these apps, to their mental health,” he said.

A recent Chalkbeat study of Colorado’s 20 largest school districts found that six have adopted stricter cell phone policies in the past two years. Six others, including Denver, Jeffco and Aurora, have no district cell phone policies.

Educators told Chalkbeat that in addition to being a chronic distraction in the classroom, smartphones can be a vehicle for students to buy or sell drugs, bully others and orchestrate fights.

About 95 percent of American teenagers own or have access to a smartphone, according to a 2023 report by the Pew Research Center. YouTube is the most popular app among teenagers, followed by TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.

Weiser said the Smartphone Challenge does not envision a particular solution to rampant cell phone use, but rather encourages schools to experiment with different strategies.