JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Smartphones hold everything from pictures to passwords and private conversations. So, when a Jacksonville teacher blogged about confiscating the phones of her students, it raised questions among parents.
Can she do that? Your VERIFY team is here to find out.
THE QUESTION
Can a Florida teacher confiscate a student's phone in class?
SOURCES
Florida House Bill 379
Florida House Bill 1035
Jacksonville Attorney Tad Delegal
THE ANSWER
Yes, teachers can confiscate students' phones in Florida.
WHAT WE FOUND
Florida House Bills 379 and 1035 both went into effect in July 2023. HB 379 prohibits students from using cellphones during instructional time but, leaves it up to school districts on how to implement the rule. HB 1035 gives teachers “the authority to control and discipline students.”
Jacksonville Attorney Tad Delegal says a teacher can take a student’s phone, but they have to give it back and can't go through it.
"Students do have rights to their own personal property,” Delegal said. “They do have rights to the privacy of the information in the phone and the school cannot access that unless there's some type of reasonable suspicion of a crime that the school is evaluating."
First Coast News asked Delegal about how the Fourth Amendment may or may not factor in; it protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
“In that situation if they're keeping the phone, confiscating the phone, but not looking into the phone, that's not really a seizure," Delegal said. "They're just maintaining the property in one place. They're not looking through it."
The Code of Conduct for Duval County Public Schools reads in part that violation of their cellphone use policy "will result in confiscation."