SF35 is being presented as a classroom management issue, and it’s true that schools face real challenges when it comes to distractions and technology use. Teachers deserve classrooms where they can teach, and students deserve environments that support learning. Reasonable guidelines around device use can absolutely be part of that conversation.

But SF35 goes well beyond classroom management. At its core, it shifts decision-making power away from parents and concentrates it in a top-down system where the state ultimately sets the rules families must live under during the school day.

Parents provide phones and smart watches for real, practical reasons—especially in Wyoming:

A one-size-fits-all policy risks ignoring these realities. 

Schools absolutely have a role in setting guidelines. But those guidelines should be shaped with parents, not around them. SF35 does not require meaningful parental input, does not protect parental opt-outs, and does not guarantee families a seat at the table. Policies can be written without real family involvement and then sent to the state superintendent, creating a compliance pipeline that moves authority upward and away from the people most directly responsible for children’s well-being.

This structure also weakens local accountability. Even when parents successfully engage with their local school board to advocate for flexible, family-centered policies, those efforts can be overridden or constrained by state-level oversight. That discourages parental involvement and shifts the culture from partnership to permission.

The issue isn’t whether schools should have rules.
 The issue is who decides those rules—and whether families are treated as partners or obstacles.

In Wyoming, where distance, weather, and access to services already create unique challenges, policies must be flexible and locally grounded. Uniform, top-down mandates may look tidy on paper, but they often fail real families in real situations.

We can support teachers and classroom learning and respect parents as the primary decision-makers for their children’s safety, communication, and daily needs. SF35, as written, tips that balance too far away from families and toward centralized control.