Isabelle Valdez, 15, and Lois Lippert, 14, have been charged as adults with attempted first-degree premeditated murder, court records filed Tuesday show. The girls, whom a police report described as best friends, were arrested Jan. 23. Police offered few details at the time except that a knife had been found at the Altamonte Springs school.

Valdez told Lake Brantley High School and law enforcement officials she sometimes heard voices telling her to hurt others. In the past, one of these supposed voices was Adam Lanza, the mass shooter who in 2012 killed over two dozen people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, according to her arrest report.

She said she no longer heard Lanza’s voice, but other voices told her she could hear his voice again if she killed another student that reminded her of Lanza. Valdez planned to kill him since September and for three months would “stalk” him around campus, taking photos of him without his knowledge, the report said.

“They told me that Adam would come back to speak to me if I did it for him. Adam Lanza wanted it,” Valdez wrote in a note to her parents included in the report. “I think it’s a fair and beautiful scene of devotion on my behalf. I love Adam Lanza. We’re soulmates, just waiting to be reunited once more.”

On the day prior to Valdez’s arrest, Altamonte Springs police received an anonymous tip that someone later identified as Valdez intended to kill a classmate on the following day. Law enforcement, including the FBI, had already been looking into Valdez as part of an investigation into multiple “swatting calls” recently made to the school and had confiscated her phone, the report said.

An assistant principal called Valdez into her office Jan. 23, where the girl talked about her plan. She then spoke with law enforcement and explained she had planned to kill the classmate after the school’s second period by pulling him into a bathroom and stabbing him. She also said she planned to lay photos of him on his body as part of a “blood ritual” that would show her devotion to Lanza, according to the report.

The girl said she had intended to write a manifesto but was then called into the office.

Valdez told police she had shared her plan with Lippert, who helped test the sharpness of the knife she was planning to use and brought her several items she requested. The report found Lippert “took measures to assist Valdez with gathering items she would need to carry out her plan to kill [the classmate],” including gloves, cigarettes and flowers.

Valdez said the flowers were for the classmate and that she’d leave them for his funeral. She planned to smoke the cigarettes after killing him, the report said.

Police found the knife in Valdez’s backpack, along with cigarettes, a lighter, a black camera, a pair of what appeared to be used work gloves and a yellow cloth. Valdez had previously told police she had a yellow towel she would use to muffle the classmate.

Also found were drawings of Valdez, Lanza and the classmate, including one of Valdez cutting him. She told police she had asked Lippert to draw them for her.

A spokesperson for the 18th Circuit State Attorney’s Office said Wednesday that the State Attorney chose to charge the girls as adults after “significant discussion” with other top prosecutors over the course of a week.

“Protecting public safety in this case calls for more aggressive, longer-term sentencing options than what the juvenile justice system offers, especially considering the serious nature of the crime and prosecutors’ assessment of the defendants.”

Both girls are currently in custody at the Seminole County Jail and had their first court appearances Wednesday afternoon, records show.

More than 60 Girl Scouts and 67 adults participated in Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan’s Ice to Table – Ice Fishing program, a hands-on winter experience that blended outdoor recreation, environmental education and practical life skills.

Designed as part of a broader fishing and aquatic conservation curriculum, the program introduced participants not just to ice fishing, but to the knowledge and confidence needed to do it safely and responsibly.

“Our Ice to Table – Ice Fishing event is part of a multi-part fishing and aquatic conservation curriculum,” said Paige Wigren, vice president of outdoor experience. “Most fishing programs focus on the ‘try-it’ aspect only. We wanted to take our events a few steps further.”

The program was offered in partnership with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service – Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge in Trenton and supported by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative through the Detroit River Youth Fishing Team grant. For nearly four years, the collaboration has worked to remove barriers that often keep families from outdoor recreation, particularly the cost of equipment and access to instruction.

Each participant began the day with a detailed ice safety demonstration. Girl Scouts were fitted with mandatory ice picks and taught what to do if they fell through the ice, emphasizing the importance of staying calm. They also learned how to “spud” their path forward using an ice spud to test ice thickness before stepping ahead.

“It is best to assume that no ice is 100% safe,” Wigren said. “Becoming too confident during high-risk activities can lead to mistakes and accidents. Safety is at the forefront of everything we do.”

For many participants, the safety lessons were among the most valuable takeaways.

“I learned it’s important to not panic if you fall through the ice, to never go on the ice alone, and to carry safety picks in case you need to pull yourself out,” said Ayla DeLuca, an eighth grader from West Bloomfield.

Cassidy Holmes, a sixth grader from Waterford, said she learned “how to judge if the ice on a lake is safe, and how to use ice picks in an emergency.”

Violet Lira, a first grader from Canton, said she was surprised that ice fishing was actually on the ice.

“I’ve only been regular fishing, like when it’s warm. Walking right on the ice surprised me! I thought we would walk next to the ice,” she said. “I learned that no ice is safe ice, and you have to check first and be really careful before you walk on it. You check how the ice feels and what color it is to see if it’s OK to go on.”

After safety fundamentals were covered, participants moved on to fishing skills. Each Girl Scout was assigned a pre-drilled ice hole and a five-gallon bucket stocked with bait, hooks, jigs, hemostats and a depth finder clip. Instructors demonstrated how to operate an ice fishing pole, bait a hook with a wax worm, gently “jig” the line, and safely remove a fish from the hook.

“They learn how to drill an ice fishing hole, scoop ice shards so they don’t cut their line, measure water depth, set the hook, reel in their catch,” Wigren explained. “And if the fish is legal and they’re interested, we teach them how to fillet and pan fry it.”

That final step, the transition from ice to table, proved especially memorable for many participants.

“I liked watching Ms. Paige filet the fish, even though it was a little gross,” Holmes said. “I had never seen that before, and it was a good learning experience.”

Lilly Brinn, a 10th grader from Troy, agreed. “I liked the fish filleting part. It was really interesting to see the knife work.”

For DeLuca, the highlight was tasting the final product. “I liked eating the fish,” she said. “Ms. Paige is very good at cooking it. Best fried fish I’ve ever had. It probably helps that it was so fresh.”

The program followed a “challenge by choice” philosophy, allowing participants to decide how involved they wanted to be in preparing their catch.

“First and foremost, we focus on the comfort level of the child,” Wigren said. “Some kids are excited to learn how to filet a fish. Others prefer just the catching part, and that’s OK.”

Even those who didn’t catch a fish found the experience rewarding.

“Even though I didn’t catch anything today, it was still interesting to learn and great to be out in nature on a sunny day,” Holmes said. “It was peaceful on the frozen lake.”

Brinn echoed that sentiment. “I didn’t catch anything, unfortunately, but I enjoyed learning how to prep fish. The hour on the ice felt more like ten minutes.”

Several participants were surprised by how quickly conditions changed on the ice.

“I was most surprised that the water in the open hole freezes so fast,” DeLuca said.

“I’d never gone before, and I was surprised how fast the ice froze,” Brinn added. “Seriously, it’s crazy.”

Winter programming comes with logistical challenges, from unpredictable weather to managing cold exposure. The Scouts addressed those risks with heated pop-up shanties, access to warming stations, and continuous monitoring of participant comfort.

While the program was first planned in 2022, inconsistent ice conditions delayed its launch. The 2025 season marked the first year it could be hosted safely, and this year’s event proved equally successful.

Despite the complexity, Wigren said the impact makes it worthwhile.

“When kids directly connect with nature in their own communities, it leads to a better understanding of conservation and sustainability,” she said. “It breaks a big concept down into something tangible.”

For many Girl Scouts, the experience sparked interest in future outdoor adventures.

“I would love to do this again,” DeLuca said. “I love fishing, and I want to try again and actually catch something.”

Holmes agreed. “It was fun, I got to see my friend, and I learned a lot.”

Wigren hopes participants walked away with more than just fishing skills.

“These events teach Girl Scouts that they can do anything they put their minds to,” she said. “They can do hard things.”

For more information on GSSEM’s Outdoor Experience Department programs, visit gssem.org/go.

When Rachel Marshall was growing up in Virginia, her parents kept a magnet on the refrigerator from a national homeschooling advocacy group, with a phone number to call if local school officials tried to interfere with their decision to educate their children at home.

“You tell [the organization] the state’s after you, and they will come in with their lawyers and defend your right to homeschool and do what you want with your kids,” said Marshall, now a licensed counselor in Utah. “The state should be hands-off, that was their goal.”

Marshall wishes the state had been more hands-on. When she was a child, she said, her education and her safety were at the mercy of her parents, who struggled with mental illness and addiction.

“It was an ugly situation,” Marshall told Stateline. “But I think had there been some sort of regulation, some expectations from the state, I would not have been exposed to that as much.”

As homeschool enrollment has risen in recent years, so have concerns about oversight.

Recent high-profile child abuse deaths in several states have led to renewed calls from lawmakers for stronger regulations. They warn that some abusers claim they are homeschooling their kids when they pull them out of school, but really want to hide their crimes from teachers and other so-called mandatory reporters in public schools. Mandatory reporters are legally obligated to speak up about abuse if they suspect it.

But the push has inflamed a broader debate over parental rights and galvanized hundreds of homeschool groups to rally at statehouses around the country.

In every state, parents or guardians can withdraw their children from public or private school to be homeschooled. States allow this even if the caregiver has been the subject of a substantiated child welfare investigation, according to the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an advocacy group. Nearly every state allows parents to withdraw children in the middle of an active investigation, and most states don’t prevent people convicted of crimes against children from homeschooling their kids.

Lawmakers in states such as Connecticut, Illinois and West Virginia have attempted to pass additional reporting requirements to guard against child abuse in homeschool settings.

They’re running up against parents’ rights groups and homeschooling advocates who argue that such regulations treat all homeschooling parents as potential criminals and aren’t necessary because many children in such situations are already on the radar of social service agencies. They say the additional requirements don’t address problems inside child protection agencies that allow such abuse to go unaddressed.

“When bad things happen, people feel compelled to do something, whether it makes a difference or not,” said Connecticut state Rep. Anne Dauphinais, a Republican who opposes homeschool regulation. “It’s often overreach of government, just because [lawmakers] want to feel good about doing something.”

In West Virginia, Democratic state Del. Shawn Fluharty said in an interview that he’d lost track of how many times he’s tried to get a bill passed that would prevent a parent from pulling a child out of public school to homeschool if social services is investigating the parent for possible child abuse or neglect. According to Stateline’s sister publication, West Virginia Watch, this year will mark the seventh year he’s tried.

Fluharty calls his bill “Raylee’s Law,” after an 8-year-old girl who died from severe abuse and neglect in 2018. Before her death, her abusers had pulled her out of public school after teachers and school administrators began noticing signs of abuse.

“At this point, I’m just pissed off,” Fluharty told Stateline. “We’ve had at least two other circumstances very similar to Raylee’s situation since I’ve been pushing this legislation.”

Fluharty said he’s considering revising the law’s name to also memorialize Kyneddi Miller, a West Virginia 14-year-old who starved to death in 2024. Her mother had pulled her from public school in 2021 to homeschool her.

The bill passed the House twice in recent years, with bipartisan support, but died in a Senate committee each time. It faces opposition from homeschooling advocates in the legislature, he said, as well as lobbying efforts from national homeschool groups.

“It’s not a complex situation,” said Fluharty. “It’s a glaring loophole that needs to be closed. The longer it stays open, the more vulnerable children are in West Virginia.”

Homeschool explosion

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, homeschool participation hovered around 2-3% of K-12 students. It exploded during the pandemic to a high of 11% of families, as learning outside of traditional schools became normalized. Now about 6% of school-age children in the United States are homeschooled, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

But interest is on the rise. In recent years, the 30 states that publicly report homeschool participation have seen those numbers grow. More than a third of those states recorded their highest homeschool enrollment ever in the 2024-2025 school year, even exceeding pandemic-era peaks, according to a study published in November.

Homeschooling has increasingly been framed as a political and cultural choice, particularly in conservative circles where it’s promoted as a way to exercise control over children’s education amid anger over how schools address racial equity, gender identity and sexuality, school violence and vaccine requirements. Homeschool supporters praise its flexibility and safety. Others warn that minimal regulation can leave some children isolated from the visibility and protections built into public school systems.

The issue doesn’t always fall neatly along party lines. In Georgia, the 2018 deaths of two siblings prompted a Republican-sponsored bill that prohibits caregivers from withdrawing a child from school for the purpose of evading detection of child abuse and neglect. It became law in 2019.

In Hawaii, Republican state Sen. Kurt Fevella filed a resolution in 2024 calling for the state to conduct a wellness visit for any child removed from school to be homeschooled. He was motivated by the deaths of two unrelated children in Hawaii who had been taken out of school for homeschooling. It died in committee.

Last year, Rachel Marshall gave testimony before Utah legislators who were considering a controversial bill that would remove part of a 2023 law requiring parents to attest they’ve never been convicted of child abuse before they’re allowed to homeschool their children.

Marshall opposed the bill, worried the state was erasing one more safeguard protecting the small subset of homeschooled children who are at risk of abuse or neglect. But as she sat listening to the homeschooling parents speaking in favor of it, their words sounded familiar.

“I could hear the fear and rage that someone would take away your rights,” she said. “But I think if you are being investigated by [child protective services], you should not be allowed to withdraw your children from daily mandated reporters like schoolteachers.”

The bill’s chief sponsor, Republican state Rep. Nicholeen Peck, said her goal was to remove a portion of state homeschooling law that was ineffective, had created confusion for school districts, and unfairly stigmatized homeschooling families.

The Utah legislature passed the bill and it was signed into law last spring.

Statehouse rallies

Studies are mixed on whether children who are homeschooled are more likely to be victims of abuse.

A 2022 survey of homeschooled and conventionally schooled adults found homeschooled children aren’t necessarily more likely to report experiencing abuse or neglect.

But among abuse victims, isolation from mandated reporters — like school teachers — is a common thread. A 2014 study found that nearly half of child torture victims had been pulled from school to be homeschooled to evade suspicions of abuse. Withdrawal from school to homeschool under suspicious circumstances is a red flag for abuse and is associated with higher risk factors for abuse, according to a report from the Coalition for Responsible Home Education.

More than 1 in 5 children withdrawn from school for homeschooling in Connecticut lived in families with at least one substantiated report from the state’s child services agency, according to a report released last year from Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate. The office based its findings on a sample of more than 700 children aged 7-11 who were withdrawn from school for homeschooling between July 2021 and June 2024.

For homeschooling families who’ve been providing their children with a high-quality education without oversight, “I can understand why they might feel they don’t need to be regulated,” said Christina Ghio, Connecticut’s child advocate.

“But as a state, we have an obligation to all children,” she told Stateline. “We know there are children whose parents say they’re homeschooling who are not. The challenge is, there’s one set of rules that has to apply to everybody.”

Her office’s report recommended state lawmakers create requirements for annual assessments of homeschoolers.

The report was issued in the wake of a high-profile abuse case: A Connecticut man was rescued in February 2025 after authorities say he’d been held captive and abused for two decades. His stepmother had pulled him from public school in fourth grade after school officials contacted authorities with concerns he was being abused.

But when lawmakers gathered for hearings on homeschooling regulation last May, after Ghio’s report, more than 2,000 people, most of them homeschool families, flooded the state’s Legislative Office Building to protest, according to the CT Mirror.

In Illinois, Democratic lawmakers introduced a sweeping homeschool regulation bill last year that, among other things, would have banned those convicted of sexual abuse crimes from homeschooling. It was prompted by an investigation from Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica into the state’s nearly nonexistent homeschool regulation.

But while the bill cleared its committee, hundreds of homeschool families and supporters packed the Illinois State Capitol to oppose it. It never made it to a full vote in the House.

Despite pushback, Connecticut House Speaker Matt Ritter, a Democrat, has signaled his interest in revisiting some kind of oversight during this legislative session.

“I don’t think this is a fight about homeschooling,” he said during a public Q&A in January, citing cases like the highly publicized death of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia.

In October, the girl’s remains were found on an abandoned property in Connecticut. The family had prior history with the state’s social services, but her mother emailed school officials in July 2024 to tell them she planned to homeschool her daughter. Authorities say that less than two months later, the girl was dead. An autopsy confirmed her death was caused by abuse and starvation.

Dauphinais, the Connecticut Republican, told Stateline she doesn’t believe any of the proposed homeschool requirements she’s heard from her Democratic colleagues would have saved children like Mimi Torres-Garcia.

“If you want to abuse your child, you’re going to abuse your child and you are never going to show up for any kind of annual evaluation,” she said. “They will game the system. We’re not talking about the 99.9% of homeschoolers doing it genuinely. We’re talking about people doing evil things.”

Ritter said families that have been investigated by child protective services or law enforcement need more follow-up. But he was candid about the long road that regulation might face: “That might get really ugly, Republican versus Democrat. I think it depends on how it gets drafted.”

National advocacy

In Utah, some of the speakers supporting removing reporting requirements from state law included representatives from the same organization that was on Marshall’s family’s refrigerator magnet: the Home School Legal Defense Association.

It’s one of the most visible homeschooling organizations in statehouses around the nation, fighting homeschool regulation of all kinds.

The group argues that the intent behind such regulation is good, but misplaced, and that such regulations unfairly burden homeschooling families without meaningfully overhauling the systems — like social services agencies — that are tasked with protecting kids from abuse.

Homeschool families struggle with “being treated as though they were being lumped in with felons, being lumped in with kidnappers, being lumped in with people who had harmed their children,” said Peter Kamakawiwoole, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association, during a Utah House committee hearing last January.

Also tracking such legislation are groups like the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, which was founded by former homeschoolers and advocates for oversight and accountability in homeschooling. The group drafted a model bill it calls the Make Homeschool Safe Act that proposes certain state reporting requirements for homeschooling families. The Home School Legal Defense Association opposes it.

Fluharty, the West Virginia lawmaker, said that when he’s accused of “going after homeschoolers,” he encourages them to read the bill. He believes the national homeschooling lobbyists are lying to families about what his legislation really does.

The goal of such regulation isn’t to take away homeschoolers’ rights, said Marshall. It’s not even necessarily for the kids whose cases wind up in front of child protective services. Instead, she said, it’s for the kids that no one can see.

“These kids are invisible,” she said. “Homeschooling is inherently isolating. Other kids are going to school and have teachers in their lives, a bus driver in their life.”

But for homeschooled kids, “If you are being abused or your education is being neglected, your parents aren’t telling others that. Nobody knows. It feels like the state doesn’t care.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

©2026 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is demanding a $1 billion payment from Harvard University to end his prolonged standoff with the Ivy League campus, doubling the amount he sought previously as both sides appear to move further from reaching a deal.

The president raised the stakes on social media Monday night, saying Harvard has been “behaving very badly.” He said the university must pay the government directly as part of any deal — something Harvard has opposed — and that his administration wants “nothing further to do” with Harvard in the future.

Trump’s comments on Truth Social came in response to a New York Times report saying the president had dropped his demand for a financial payment, lowering the bar for a deal. Trump denied he was backing down.

Harvard officials did not immediately comment.

Trump’s outburst appears to leave both sides firmly entrenched in a conflict that Trump previously said was nearing an end.

Last June, Trump said a deal was just days away and that Harvard had acted “extremely appropriately” during negotiations. He later said an agreement was being finalized that would require Harvard to put $500 million toward the creation of a “series of trade schools” rather than a payment to the government.

That deal appears to have fallen apart entirely. In his social media post, Trump said the trade school proposal had been turned down because it was “convoluted” and “wholly inadequate.”

Harvard has long been Trump’s top target in his administration’s campaign to bring the nation’s most prestigious universities to heel. His officials have cut billions of dollars in Harvard’s federal research funding and attempted to block it from enrolling foreign students after the campus rebuffed a series of government demands last April.

The White House has said it’s punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus.

In a pair of lawsuits, Harvard said it’s being unfairly penalized for refusing to adopt the administration’s views. A federal judge agreed in December, reversing the funding cuts and calling the antisemitism argument a “smokescreen.”

Trump’s latest escalation comes as other parts of his higher education campaign are teetering.

Last fall, the White House invited nine universities to join a “compact” that offered funding priority in exchange for adopting Trump’s agenda. None of the schools accepted. In January, the administration abandoned its legal defense of an Education Department document threatening to cut schools’ funding over diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

When he took office for his second term, Trump made it a priority to go after elite universities that he said had been overrun by liberal thinking and anti-Jewish bias. His officials have frozen huge sums of research funding, which colleges have come to rely on for scientific and medical research.

Several universities have reached agreements with the White House to restore funding. Some deals have included direct payments to the government, including $200 million from Columbia University. Brown University agreed to pay $50 million toward state workforce development groups.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

“The kids and their families have experienced and are experiencing real trauma they have to deal with daily,” one mother said, addressing the crowd and a panel of local politicians who attended the meeting.

Referencing the social media post, the mom said, “those words are a break of trust that is absolutely critical in a school — and that trust has been broken.”

“Kids do not feel safe, which means they aren’t safe,” she added.

The audience at the morning meeting included many children whose parents said they had pulled them out of school that day because of worry over a controversial social media post that appeared to have been made by a West Chicago Elementary District 33 employee.

A written statement from Superintendent Kristina Davis said that on Jan. 22 the school district “learned of concerns regarding a disruptive social media comment made by a district employee on his personal account.”

The teacher initially submitted his resignation but later that day he withdrew it before the school board had an opportunity to take action, according to the statement.

On Monday, the employee met with district administration and afterward was placed on administrative leave pending a district investigation. The employee won’t be permitted on district property during the investigation, the statement added.

The statement did not name the employee or the school at which he works.

“We understand that this situation has raised concerns and caused disruption for students, families, and staff,” according to the statement. “We want to ensure our schools are safe spaces, and we look forward to seeing all students back in school tomorrow.”

An online petition with more than 380 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon called for parents in the district to keep their children home from school on Monday in protest.

“This week, a D33 teacher commented, “Go ICE!” in response to a community article,” the petition said. “The casual way in which he publicly promoted the actions of ICE in our area is inappropriate and unsuitable for an educator.”

The petition noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has “actively harmed the families in our area, including the students (the employee) is tasked to care for daily.”

“The best way to show our district that we need action to be taken is to show them that keeping this teacher will disrupt the emotional welfare and therefore, the education of our students,” the petition said.

West Chicago officials called Monday’s meeting a “community listening session” and said it was hosted by city officials to “provide a space for voices to be heard in a way that does not further impact students or disrupt school operations.”

The meeting came as clashes over immigration enforcement tactics have reached a flashpoint nationwide following the deadly shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday at the hands of immigration officials, the second U.S. citizen to be killed by federal forces in Minnesota this month.

During the West Chicago meeting, Mayor Daniel Bovey described the terror many local children have experienced during the recent onslaught of immigration enforcement in the Chicago area, dubbed Operation Midway Blitz.

“The reason we are here this morning is because our community is one that has been traumatized in the last three months, four months by the actions of ICE,” Bovey told the crowd at the start of the meeting. “And we have kids in the schools … in the school in question who have lost a mom or a dad in recent months. We have kids who are having panic attacks at school, who are afraid that they will get home and their mom or their dad will not be there.”

The issue is not about an individual’s right to an opinion that might go against the majority, he added.

“The issue is we have trusted adults who are the ones that care for those kids when they can’t be with their mom and their dad,” the mayor said. “So to have someone cavalierly rooting on — as if it’s a football game or something, yeah go — events which have traumatized these children … that is the issue.”

During an interview with the Tribune on Tuesday, Bovey said he had personally received “hundreds of hate messages” regarding the incident, adding that the vast majority are coming from all over the country and very few are from within the community.

“Our school district has received thousands of hate messages. And I would again ask that in considering how each one of us responds to the situation, that everyone keep the welfare of the children as their first priority,” he added. “We’re trying to do everything we can to keep the kids in our district from bearing the brunt of it.”

Democrat State Rep. Maura Hirschauer told the crowd at the meeting that, “your feelings matter.”

“Your safety matters,” she added. “The way you feel in school matters.”

Deborah Taylor, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Association of West Chicago, said during the meeting that the union understands “the anger and uncertainty that you are feeling right now.”

“As teachers who care deeply for the well-being of our students and community, we are worried and saddened by the devastating effects of violent, threatening, and discriminatory actions in West Chicago and our nation as a whole in recent times,” she added. “We want to reassure you that our schools are a safe place for your children. We strongly believe that schools should be a safe place for every one of our students, regardless of race, ethnicity or immigration status.”

One third grade boy spoke during the meeting and told the crowd he was glad the district was investigating the social media post.

He added that the presence at school of the employee accused of posting the message, “might not make some of my friends feel safe.”

“I want all my friends to feel and be safe,” the boy added.

During an interview with the Tribune, Democrat state Sen. Karina Villa, who lives in West Chicago, said the community is fortunate to have many “loving teachers.”

“We all have the freedom of speech in this country,” added Villa, who also attended the meeting. “But words have meanings and when those words are used in a way that draws fear from children then those words must have consequences.”

No members of the West Chicago District 33 school board were at the meeting.

School board President Rita Balgeman said in an email to the Tribune that the board “is aware of the concerns being raised and the disruptive impact this situation is having on our students, families, schools, and community.”

Balgeman referred to the superintendent’s statement but said the district couldn’t comment further on personnel matters.

The next school board meeting is scheduled for Feb. 5, according to the district calendar.

Controversial social media posts made by educators have recently come under fire at other school districts, including several made by teachers in the wake of the September fatal shooting of conservative activist and Prospect Heights native Charlie Kirk.

In some cases, teachers resigned or were fired amid mounting public pressure and doxing campaigns, as well as threats by elected officials and education leaders.

A high school English teacher was placed under investigation by her south suburban school district in connection with a Facebook post in which she allegedly called Kirk’s assassination “the single best example of you reap what you sow.”

A Kentland, Indiana, high school history teacher ignited backlash after apparently writing on social media: “(Expletive) Charlie Kirk and his rhetoric. That being said, we need to work together to do better.”

Parents and community members were often divided over whether these educators should be subject to disciplinary action, with some members of the public supporting their right to free speech and others questioning their judgment.

“My 13-year-old, who is learning more each day about this evil in the world, is forced to ask the question of whether or not a teacher she’s passed in the hall desired the murder of another human being,” one parent said during a Kentlandschool board meeting in September. “That’s extremely sad and I’m heartbroken.” ]]> 1400791 2026-01-29T08:34:45+00:00 2026-01-29T08:35:08+00:00 https://www.thenewsherald.com/2026/01/28/central-florida-substitute-teacher-arrested-for-dui-in-school-parking-lot/ Thu, 29 Jan 2026 02:05:04 +0000 https://www.thenewsherald.com/?p=1400809&preview=true&preview_id=1400809 A Central Florida substitute teacher faces charges for DUI in a school parking lot.

On Tuesday, around 1030 a.m., a deputy noticed 44-year-old Micah Alan Dyal as he attempted to back out of a parking spot at Lake Alfred Polytech at 925 N. Buena Vista Drive in Lake Alfred, according to a press release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

The deputy, who works at Lake Alfred as a school resource officer, conducted a field sobriety test on Dyal. He noted obvious signs of impairment and a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage on Dyal’s breath.

“This substitute teacher was drunker than Cooter Brown at school while he was supposed to be teaching our children,” said Sheriff Grady Judd.

The resource officer arrested Dyal and transported him to the Sheriff’s Processing Center.

Polk County Public Schools issued a statement about the arrest. They thanked staff for “noticing something was off” and “not allowing this individual to proceed into the classroom.” Polk officials said Dyal will “no longer have any involvement with PCPS.”

Additionally, any student whose family makes less than $100,000 per year will have their full cost of attendance, including housing, meals and course materials, paid for by the school.

“I am thrilled that Yale is making this important investment in affordability,” said the school’s undergraduate admissions dean, Jeremiah Quinlan.

More than 80% of U.S. families will qualify for the free tuition offer, according to Yale’s estimates. The policy will begin for incoming students in the 2026-27 school year, when tuition is set to cost $72,500.

Yale announced the policy one year after another top Ivy League school, Harvard, revealed similar plans. Harvard’s policy began for the current 2025-26 school year and followed the example of other top universities, including Columbia University, which offers free tuition for students from families making less than $150,000.

A 2017 analysis found that 69% of Yale students came from the richest 20% of families in the U.S. — that number was also 67% at Harvard.

The total cost of attendance next year at Yale will be nearly $100,000, according to the school’s website. In addition to the $72,500 tuition, the school estimates $12,000 in housing costs and $9,000 in food spending.

Tuesday’s announcement expands Yale’s financial aid options to more families. The school already offered free cost of attendance to students from families making less than $75,000.

“I know that navigating financial aid can feel overwhelming,” Undergraduate Financial Aid Director Kari DiFonzo said. “Determining a family’s specific ability to contribute toward a college education can be complicated, but these new policies will make it easier for more families to quickly understand their cost.”

The first time Patrick Thaw saw his University of Michigan friends together since sophomore year ended was bittersweet. They were starting a new semester in Ann Arbor, while he was FaceTiming in from Singapore, stranded half a world away.

One day last June he was interviewing to renew his U.S. student visa, and the next his world was turned upside down by President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from 12 countries, including Thaw’s native Myanmar.

“If I knew it was going to go down this badly, I wouldn’t have left the United States,” he said of his decision to leave Michigan for a summer internship in Singapore.

The ban was one of several ways the Trump administration made life harder for international students during his first year back in the White House, including a pause in visa appointments and additional layers of vetting that contributed to a dip in foreign enrollment for first-time students. New students had to look elsewhere, but the hurdles made life particularly complicated for those like Thaw who were well into their U.S. college careers.

Universities have had to come up with increasingly flexible solutions, such as bringing back pandemic-era remote learning arrangements or offering admission to international campuses they partner with, said Sarah Spreitzer, assistant vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education.

In Thaw’s case, a Michigan administrator highlighted studying abroad as an option. As long as the travel ban was in place, a program in Australia seemed viable — at least initially.

In the meantime, Thaw didn’t have much to do in Singapore but wait. He made friends, but they were busy with school or jobs. After his internship ended, he killed time by checking email, talking walks and eating out.

“Mentally, I’m back in Ann Arbor,” the 21-year-old said. “But physically, I’m trapped in Singapore.”

He was at Michigan ‘to think and take risks’

When Thaw arrived in Ann Arbor in 2023, he threw himself into campus life. He immediately meshed with his dorm roommate’s group of friends, who had gone to high school together about an hour away. A neuroscience major, he also joined a biology fraternity and an Alzheimer’s research lab.

His curiosity pushed him to explore a wide range of courses, including a Jewish studies class. The professor, Cara Rock-Singer, said Thaw told her his interest stemmed from reading the works of Philip Roth.

“I really work to make it a place where everyone feels not only comfortable, but invested in contributing,” Rock-Singer said. “But Patrick did not need nudging. He was always there to think and take risks.”

When Thaw landed his clinical research internship at a Singapore medical school, it felt like just another step toward success.

He heard speculation that the Trump administration might impose travel restrictions, but it was barely an afterthought — something he said he even joked about with friends before departing.

Then the travel ban was announced.

The US offered an escape and a top education

Thaw’s U.S. college dream had been a lifetime in the making but was undone — at least for now — by one trip abroad. Stuck in Singapore, he couldn’t sleep and his mind fixated on one question: “Why did you even come here?”

As a child, Thaw set his sights on attending an American university. That desire became more urgent as higher education opportunities dwindled after a civil war broke out in Myanmar.

For a time, tensions were so high that Thaw and his mother took shifts watching to make sure the bamboo in their front yard didn’t erupt in flames from Molotov cocktails. Once, he was late for an algebra exam because a bomb exploded in front of his house, he said.

So when he was accepted to the University of Michigan after applying to colleges “around the clock,” Thaw was elated.

“The moment I landed in the United States, like, set foot, I was like, this is it,” Thaw said. “This is where I begin my new life.”

When Thaw talked about life in Myanmar, it often led to deep conversations, said Allison Voto, one of his friends. He was one of the first people she met whose background was very different from hers, which made her “more understanding of the world,” she said.

During the 2024-25 school year, the U.S. hosted nearly 1.2 million international students. As of summer 2024, more than 1,400 people from Myanmar had American student visas, making it one of the top-represented countries among those hit by the travel ban.

A last-ditch effort to stay enrolled

A Michigan official said the school recognizes the challenges facing some international students and is committed to ensuring they have all the support and options it can provide. The university declined to comment specifically on Thaw’s situation.

While the study abroad program in Australia sparked some hope that Thaw could stay enrolled at Michigan, uncertainty around the travel ban and visa obstacles ultimately led him to decide against it.

He had left Myanmar to get an education and it was time to finish what he started, which meant moving on.

“I cannot just wait for the travel ban to just end and get lifted and go back, because that’s going to be an indefinite amount of time,” he said.

He started applying to colleges outside the U.S., getting back acceptance letters from schools in Australia and Canada. He is holding out hope of attending the University of Toronto, which would put his friends in Ann Arbor just a four-hour drive from visiting him.

“If he comes anywhere near me, basically on the continent of North America, I’m going to go see him,” said Voto, whose friendship with Thaw lately is defined by daylong gaps in their text conversations. “I mean, he’s Patrick, you know? That’s absolutely worth it.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The results were swift: Within five years, the number of Florida nursing programs more than doubled. But many were for-profit institutions that churned out students whose pricey degrees left them ill-prepared to enter the field.

Among the newcomers was Ideal Professional Institute, a suburban Miami school that in the next decade produced more than 2,300 graduates. Just 13% of those graduates passed the national exam for registered nurses on their initial attempt, however, an abysmal rate for a test that nearly 90% of first-time test-takers nationwide master.

Within six years of its opening, the state’s Board of Nursing voted to shut down Ideal’s registered nurse program, but allowed it to remain open for years longer while it fought the decision.

Then in September, an Ideal administrator was accused of selling fake degrees, part of a yearslong FBI investigation dubbed “Operation Nightingale,” which led to federal charges against more than a dozen Florida nursing school operators. The scandal put an uncomfortable national spotlight on the Sunshine State’s nursing schools.

While Ideal’s record is jaw-dropping, in many ways the school exemplifies the type of nursing program that proliferated in Florida after the 2009 change. In sharp contrast to established programs, such as those at Seminole State College and Florida Atlantic University, these new programs often charged students tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and graduated would-be nurses who couldn’t pass the exam required to enter the profession.

As a result, Florida’s nursing education system is now among the lowest-performing in the nation, as measured by exam passage rates. In part because of that dismal performance, the state still projects a need for 60,000 more nurses by 2035. And patients are left with spotty assurances that the nurses they encounter in hospitals or homes are properly trained.

So far, state leaders have failed to tackle the problem.  Florida’s lawmakers passed legislation last year to modestly tighten oversight of nursing schools, but Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed it. The Legislature will try again this year.

“We have got to do something about our nursing programs here in Florida,” said state Sen. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, who has sponsored legislation to address the issue, during a committee meeting in November.

Prior to 2009, the Florida Board of Nursing set the rules about how schools gained approval to train future nurses in Florida.

But lawmakers were frustrated with a mounting need for new nurses and a limited number of seats in existing nursing schools.

They also argued the nursing board’s rules were too restrictive and sometimes trivial. Applying schools, they said, could be turned away if their walls were painted the wrong color.

So legislators took much of the decision-making power away from the board. The state’s Department of Health warned the result could be “inadequately trained” nursing school graduates, according to a Senate staff analysis of the legislation provided to lawmakers, but they voted unanimously to pass it.

The goal was to quickly get new nursing programs up and running, and it worked. Within 18 months, more than 60 new nursing schools were approved. Since then, the number of nursing programs ballooned from about 180 to more than 500. The number of annual graduates has skyrocketed, too, from roughly 11,000 to 25,000.

The board judges would-be schools based on criteria like faculty credentials and clinical experiences for students. But it’s not hard to get the board’s stamp of approval, and most of the schools accused of fraud by the FBI obtained it shortly after the new law was passed.

“I don’t recall a program being denied,” said Joe Baker Jr., who served as executive director of the nursing board from 2010 until his retirement in 2024.

Once a new school opens, the board’s oversight authority is minimal and the process of closing a poor-performing school can take years, even if its students struggle to pass the national Nurse Council Licensure Exam, or NCLEX, needed to work in the field.

“Once they turn in the application and say they’re going to do this and they get approved, the only person that looks over them is themselves,” said Christine Mueller, now the board’s vice chair, at an August meeting.

The law created “unintended consequences,” admitted Denise Grimsley, a former nurse and lawmaker who sponsored the 2009 bill.

Problems with the new schools cropped up quickly.

“There were some programs that were charging exorbitant amounts of money and some of the graduates weren’t able to pass the NCLEX exam,” said Grimsley, a Republican from Sebring who served in both the House and Senate.

Florida’s NCLEX passing rate is now among the worst in the country. That rate dropped to below 70% in some recent years, compared to a national average of 80% or more. It rose in 2024 to 85% but there were fewer test takers from for-profit schools as scrutiny of them has increased, and it still trailed the national rate of 91%.

Roughly 57% of would-be registered nurses who attended for-profit colleges like Ideal passed the exam on the first try during the past five years, compared with 86% of their peers from public schools, according to a report published last year by the Florida Center for Nursing.

The current law for holding schools accountable is “insufficient,” said Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, during a committee meeting in March where he pushed for changes to the 2009 law.  “Not only does it fail to address our nursing shortage, it leaves students who are unable to pass the NCLEX exam with high student loan debt and no ability to earn income.”

In response to early problems, the Legislature passed another law in 2014 requiring new nursing schools to become accredited within five years, meaning they needed approval from an outside agency that judges school quality.

But schools that fail to gain that outside approval can remain open for years after getting extensions.

Under the 2009 law, schools also can be put on probation, or face closure, if their exam passage rates are persistently more than 10 percentage points below the national average. Nearly two dozen programs for would-be registered nurses are currently on probation.

Ideal, the struggling school in Miami, failed to get accredited but didn’t shut down right away, though the nursing board voted in 2019 to close it.

Federal prosecutors would later report that an Ideal administrator began selling fake diplomas in 2018 in a scheme that lasted until 2022.

The nursing board’s key power is to prevent students from taking the NCLEX if members decide their school has failed to meet the state’s nursing education requirements. Most nursing school graduates are routinely approved to take the test — but some get stopped.

That enforcement-at-the-end process means students could be thwarted from a nursing career after paying thousands of dollars for a nursing education that was state approved. The process often plays out in great detail at the nursing board’s bimonthly public meetings, where students can appeal a decision to block them from the exam.

Last month, the board barred a student from taking the NCLEX who’d studied at Sunlight Healthcare Academy in Longwood, a for-profit school that is on probation and has NCLEX passing rates below 50%. The school is tucked away on the second floor of an aging commercial complex on State Road 434, with little signage.

Board members questioned the transcript Sunlight provided, saying it failed to note when classes were taken and to document if the student had clocked the required clinical hours.

Mueller even pulled up the school’s website on her laptop during the meeting and said it looked “really bad.”

“There’s no catalog online that I could find,” Mueller said. “There’s nothing I could compare this transcript to.”

Sunlight’s registered nursing program was approved by the state board in 2019 and remains in business.

Executive director Fleurette Sunjic declined to comment on the nursing board’s recent refusal to allow a Sunlight graduate to take the NCLEX but said the school’s programs are designed to meet state requirements.

“Our efforts are focused on strengthening program quality, enhancing compliance processes, and improving student preparedness,” she wrote. “These initiatives are reflected in Sunlight Healthcare Academy’s improved 2025 NCLEX pass rates, and we remain committed to sustaining this positive trajectory.”

State records, which reflect school passage rates through September, show three Sunlight graduates took the exam for registered nurses in 2025 and all of them passed.

A year earlier, a graduate of Brilliant Academy Health Center in Orlando, where tuition and fees run nearly $27,000, was also told she could not take the NCLEX. Her nursing classes were taught online, in violation of state rules, and she did not complete enough clinical hours with real patients rather than simulation dummies, the board decided.

During the discussion, board member Jose D. Castillo III decried the “unsatisfactory performance of some of these schools of nursing” the board approved in prior years.

Blocking nursing graduates from taking the test is a way to prevent poorly educated students from becoming licensed nurses, he said.

“We are the gatekeepers for this profession, so the public, your parents, my parents, my kids, my grandparents, my relatives are safe. That’s our role,” Castillo added.

The board approved Brilliant’s registered nursing program in 2018. It is also on probation but still advertising for students, with a large sign facing a busy stretch of Conway Road near Orlando International Airport. Administrators for Brilliant, a for-profit school, did not respond to an email and phone call seeking comment.

The nursing board’s members are appointed by the governor, and all of the current members are licensed nurses.

All nine members who sat on the 13-member board while much of the FBI investigation became public either declined requests for interviews from the Orlando Sentinel or did not respond to phone calls and emails from a reporter. Board staff members also did not respond to emailed questions from the Sentinel.

But board members’ comments during public meetings over the past three years — as the FBI investigation made national headlines – suggest many of them believe the group needs more power to hold nursing schools accountable.

“If we could have been checking on these schools, I feel like we could have prevented some of this, possibly,” said Deborah Becker during a 2024 meeting.  “We could have had our thumb on the pulse of what was going on. I have experience with other boards of nursing outside of this state, and they have the authority to look at the schools, monitor the schools yearly, have visits.”

Current law says the board may conduct on-site evaluations of new schools seeking state approval. The department has not typically visited schools after opening because state law does not explicitly allow such visits, Baker said.

Federal investigators laid bare how the state’s lack of scrutiny of its nursing programs attracted bad actors when in early 2023 they announced charges against the operators of three south Florida programs.

Those school administrators were accused of selling more than 7,000 phony degrees to students for $10,000 to $20,000 each. The investigation was dubbed Operation Nightingale in a nod to Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.

“When we talk about a nurse’s education and credentials, shortcut is not a word we want to use,” then-U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe said during a press conference in January 2023. “When we take an injured son or daughter to a hospital emergency room, we do not expect, really cannot imagine, that the licensed practical nurse or registered nurse treating our child took a short cut around the educational licensing requirements.”

He said about 30% of the people who bought fake diplomas passed the NCLEX, perhaps because they had some previous medical training, and some ended up employed in healthcare facilities across the country.

“Not only is this a public safety issue, it actually tarnishes the reputation of the nurses who did the hard clinical and coursework required to get licenses and jobs,” Lapointe said.

The investigation later expanded and now more than 30 people, working for the dozen Florida schools, have been charged.

Most of the campuses selling fake diplomas were in South Florida, though the leaders of two in Central Florida –  Med-Life Institute in Kissimmee and Wheatland Institute in Orlando – were charged, too.

In November, former Ideal administrator Joel Lubin pleaded guilty to selling fraudulent diplomas to students and raking in more than $7 million. Some people with those fake diplomas later found work as nurses, his plea deal noted.

While some students of the schools at the center of Operation Nightingale may have realized they were purchasing diplomas they didn’t earn, others seem to have pursued their degrees honestly.

Lechell Bailey found Ideal after an online search for nursing programs and called the state’s nursing board to confirm it was legitimate. Yes, she was told. The board approved it in 2013.

But more than five years after Bailey started classes at the now-closed school, paying a total of $15,000 in tuition to obtain her degree, she’s no closer to becoming a nurse.

She failed the NCLEX in 2024 and now, because of the criminal charges against Lubin, the board won’t let Bailey try again to pass the test. Though her diploma was not flagged as one that was bought, board members don’t think the school provided her and other graduates with a proper education and don’t think Ideal graduates should be seeing patients.

“I 100% don’t blame you,” Mueller told her at the board’s Dec. 3 meeting.  “I blame the school.”

Board members acknowledge students from Ideal and other Operation Nightingale schools took the test and obtained licenses before the FBI operation became public. But now that they know what happened, Mueller added, “we are looking at this from a patient’s perspective” and acting in the public’s interest.

In Bailey’s view, the state has let her and other would-be nurses down.

“They’re letting us go to school and then when we’re finished, they find problems,” Bailey said. “But it’s their job to make sure the schools are legit.”

Florida lawmakers now will try for a third consecutive year to bolster the nursing board’s oversight, hoping to protect future students like Bailey and boost nursing school quality.

A pair of proposals introduced for the legislative session that starts Jan. 13 focuses on preventing bad schools from opening and weeding them out when they do. Both bills, for example, would allow Department of Health employees to conduct nursing school site visits at any time.

The House version also requires programs with NCLEX passage rates of less than 30% to refund the tuition of any student who fails to pass the exam, while the Senate version requires the Board of Nursing to deny applications from schools that have been revoked or put on probation in other states.

Baker, the nursing board’s former executive director, said if lawmakers had not stripped much of the power from the nursing board in 2009, the Operation Nightingale scandal and the proliferation of low-performing schools might have been prevented.

“If the board doesn’t have sufficient oversight authority, we’re not going to end up with properly educated nurses who can pass the NCLEX and join the workforce where they are so desperately needed,” he said.

While the 2026 bills would not restore the sweeping authority the nursing board wielded before, they would help ensure students are getting the education they need, Baker said.

“That legislation is a step in the right direction,” he said.

But the governor could be an obstacle again.

When DeSantis vetoed last year’s bill, one similar to the one under consideration in the House this year, he wrote in a veto message that he feared it would “undermine the progress that has been made to bolster the state’s nursing workforce.”

“These policies will deter programs from accepting students, encourage them to focus on test preparation rather than training students to work in healthcare, and will hinder the state’s ability to recruit and maintain nursing programs and directors in the first place,” DeSantis wrote.

Bob Harris, an attorney who spoke on behalf of the Florida Association of Independent Nursing Schools during several committee meetings in 2025, also opposed the legislation. His organization represents private schools that produce more than half of Florida’s nurses, and some of those schools would close if the bill passed, he said.

“If you are in support of fewer nurses in the state of Florida, then vote for this bill, because that will be the impact,” Harris told lawmakers in March.

The institutions Harris represents largely serve nontraditional students who are older than the typical college-goer, he said, and many juggle their schoolwork with family responsibilities and jobs.

Because Florida’s public programs are so selective – the University of Central Florida’s nursing school routinely rejects qualified applicants every year – they enroll only strong performers, buoying their NCLEX passage rates, Harris noted.

The private schools that are less choosy have lower NCLEX rates, he said, but also provide an important avenue to help more students launch nursing careers.

But several professional organizations say the proposed laws, and more oversight of Florida’s nursing schools, are needed.

Predatory school operators have realized that a lot of people want to be nurses and since 2009 have been “lying in wait” for students turned away from high-performing schools,  said Willa Hill, the executive director for the Florida Nurses Association. “So many people want to become nurses, it’s a cash cow.”

But the schools that recruit those students do them and the state a disservice, she said.

“You’re not solving the nursing shortage if people can’t pass the test,” Hill said, “and you don’t want them working if you can’t pass the test.”

anmartin@orlandosentinel.com

The Michigan Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to ban students from using cellphones in public schools during instructional time, setting the legislation on a path to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk.

Under the proposals, which represents a compromise between the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate, school districts would have to create their own policies by next school year that, at a minimum, prohibit cellphones from being used during instructional time. Districts could also act earlier or go further to completely outlaw phones and other devices, but the decision on whether to exceed the new minimum standard would be up to local officials.

The Senate voted 34-1 in favor of the main bill in the package. Only Sen. Michele Hoitenga, R-Manton, voted no. The House approved the same measure last week in a vote of 99-10.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, a former teacher, told reporters Thursday that by putting the blanket ban into law, she hoped it would help school staff with enforcement.

“There’s a basic agreement among everyone that students should not be scrolling social media and doing other things that are not related to school during instruction,” Polehanki said.

Polehanki worked on the bills, across party lines, with state Rep. Mark Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills, who first introduced similar legislation in 2023.

Tisdel has estimated that about 40 of the more than 500 school districts in Michigan already have cellphone policies that are enforced. But the landscape of rules is a patchwork in Michigan, and a uniform state law on the issue gives school policies greater weight when challenged by students or parents, the Republican lawmaker contended.

About 18 states already have bell-to-bell bans on cellphones on school grounds, Tisdel said.

Hoitenga said Thursday that while she agrees that limiting cellphone use in schools can lead to positive educational outcomes, she doesn’t believe more laws are necessary.

“Schools can already establish their own phone policies at the local level without a government mandate,” said Hoitenga about the reason for her no vote.

Emergency exception bill passed

During Whitmer’s 2025 State of the State address, she called on lawmakers to pursue bipartisan legislation restricting cellphone use in classrooms. The Democratic governor cited “encouraging data” showing that restricting phone use during class leads to greater learning and less bullying.

“Kids listen, raise their hands and make more friends,” Whitmer said in February 2025. “They talk during field trips. Three-quarters say they feel happy or peaceful without their phone. That’s what school should be about.”

The governor is expected to sign the new bills when they reach her desk.

The main bill, sponsored by Tisdel, has already passed the House and Senate. However, a companion measure, sponsored by Polehanki, has only passed the Senate and could be voted on by the House as soon as next week. It would require districts to have protocols in place for allowing students to use their devices during emergencies.

The legislation affects more than just cellphones in school. It prohibits the use of “wireless communications devices” that are capable of text messaging, voice communication, accessing the internet or receiving photos and videos.

Tisdel said he believes the prohibition would affect devices like Apple Watches because they can access the internet and be synced with a cellphone for text messaging.

There are exemptions for school district-owned devices, such as tablets, and medically necessary devices.

Leader, students weigh in

Northville Public Schools Superintendent RJ Weber said his district changed its policy to allow students to carry their phones in their backpacks or keep them in their lockers, but the devices can’t be used during the day.

Weber said the district held focus groups with high school students who said they felt banning phones altogether wouldn’t be effective.

“My belief personally and the belief of the board…, we would rather educate and teach our kids with strong, clear policy about appropriate use, than to lock it down and take it away in such a way that feels more controlling,” he said.

Weber said parents also raised concerns about safety and about being able to communicate with their child in an emergency. Weber said he was empathetic to that.

At Farmington High School, a protocol is already in place for students to place their phones in pouches during instructional time. It’s enforced on a case-by-case basis, Spanish teacher Jennifer Michaels said, based on how each teacher manages their classroom.

“I’m the one who says, ‘No, when you’re done with your work, you can talk to somebody,’” Michaels said. “You can play Jenga, you can play Uno, you can read a book.”

The socialization, she said, is her biggest concern about kids having phones at school. They often struggle to plan ahead, she said, because they can text their parents throughout the day.

“I would love to see them not be able to access their phone,” Michaels said. “It will be a learning curve.”

As for the timing of the new ban taking effect across the state, it’s set to begin next school year. But Polehanki said school districts might decide to get ahead of that deadline and begin their policies at some point this year.

“If I was a school leader, I would definitely jump on this this year, either through planning or community discussion,” Polehanki said.