I have three teenagers in Highschool in Indiana. Students in their classes might get their phones out when they are not supposed to, but they put them away when called on it and are sent to the office if they distract others. In our school district at least, teachers have plenty of means to discipline students, or at least remove distractions when they occur. Every highschool here has a Police Liason Officer, and refusing to follow teacher’s orders(especially to leave the classroom) is treated as a crime or … a “crowd management” issue.

As for cell phones specifically, shoe organizer on the back of the classroom door, or cubbies(cub-bee) in a locked cabinet, ringers off and stashed like so at the beginning of class, done. There’s no shortage of (cheap)options available options for teachers nor of administrators willing to back teachers conventional(and long-established) plays on (somehow 🙄)high-profile issues.

Vendors? Look at private prisons and charter schools(both of which Democrats in office have been all-to-happy to facilitate, and Republicans love). Someone with a “solution”, or just planning to have a solution greases some palms, and suddenly the state is buying “the solution” from “the lowest bidder”, who just so happens to be the only bidder until their name is synonymous with “the solution” statewide, for decades.

If you were not aware, Indiana is a Republican state. Such things are very much out in the open here. Wouldn’t surprise me if this law passed, and suddenly there’s a re-branded Pyxis Medstation(a $32,000 machine) with Cubie(kew-bee) Drawers(an expensive add-on) in every classroom, with an expensive mainenance contract to boot.

Hyperbole, hopefully - that was the worst possibility I could come up with, but that product actually exists, and you get the idea. No way in hell the state is coming up with a better(or cheaper) solution than the teachers already use. That’s like assuming California Governor Newsome’s “bread exemption” to the $20hr Fast-Food Worker Minimum Wage serves a useful purpose besides doing a favor to the Owner of Panera, a close personal friend of his. Newsome is a Democrat, by the way.