Cox says he supports banning smartphones in classrooms
After spending much of the year pushing legislation and litigation designed to protect kids from the negative effects of social media, Gov. Spencer Cox said Wednesday he supports banning smartphones from K-12 classrooms in Utah.
During his monthly PBS Utah news conference, Cox said the evidence is “overwhelming” that smartphones contribute to learning loss for students. He said he has plans to contact every school in the state to ask principals to prevent smartphone use in class.
A bill was proposed this year to ban cellphones from classrooms, but it didn’t make it out of committee. There hasn’t been a new proposal announced to enact Cox’s policy, though it likely will come up during the upcoming legislative session.
Cox also noted that he has “no problem” with exceptions to a cell phone ban, especially for students with a medical reason to need to keep their phone on them.
Find our full recap on the governor's monthly press conferencehere.
Granite schools’ nonprofit pulls 40K granola bars from meal kits after recall
Granite Education Foundation, a nonprofit serving the Granite School District, had to pull 40,000 granola bars from meal kits after a product recall.
Thousands of weekend meal kits were ready to go out to schools in the district to help students with food insecurities, but after Quaker granola bars were recalled last week because of a salmonella threat, the kits have to be unpackaged.
Volunteers have been pulling granola bars out of the meal kits since Tuesday. They’ve reportedly gone through enough for this week’s deliveries, but still have thousands more to look through and are looking for more volunteers.
To help, you can visit the Granite Education Foundation website.
Will Colorado’s decision to remove Trump from primaries affect Utah?
After Colorado’s Supreme Court removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot on Tuesday, questions have arisen on how it will affect the Utah election.
According to Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, it won’t, at least short term, because the Utah Republican Party opted out of the traditional primary election process earlier this year.
Instead, a members-only caucus will have in-person voting to nominate a presidential candidate through a preference poll. As the caucus is a party function, Henderson said the state has no oversight over it.
Six presidential candidates have qualified for the Utah Republican Party’s presidential preference poll, including Donald Trump. Voting for the poll will happen on March 5.
