The St. Paul Public Schools Board of Education approved a cellphone policy for students Tuesday prohibiting their use during school hours that it will implement this fall.

Districts across the state are adopting district-wide policies on cellphone use since the Legislature mandated them last year. The deadline for districts to set school board-approved policies is March 15.

The policy states that the use of personal electronic devices will not be permitted during school hours and must either remain at home, in lockers or turned off and put away. It includes cellphones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, gaming systems and earbuds.

“There is no such thing as a perfect policy, but I do think that we’re at a point where we’ve crafted something that answers the original question that we had of, how do we enact this law in a way that is as equitable as it can be, and rooted in the understanding that technology is here and not going away, as well as bringing in as many stakeholders as we can,” said Chair Halla Henderson.

Elementary level

The majority of SPPS schools already do not allow the use of cellphones during the entire school day, according to the district.

Currently, no SPPS elementary schools allow cellphone use during the school day and most middle schools don’t allow their use, either.

Board members did discuss allowing the use of smartwatches — some elementary students use them to navigate their way to and from school.

High school level

For the majority of high schools, some use of cellphones, such as during lunch, is permitted.

As part of the approved cellphone policy, schools can develop their own documented plans with school stakeholders for grades nine and above that must be reviewed annually.

Schools could then decide for those grade levels to allow cellphone use before and after school, between class periods or during lunch, but must have an objective of reducing their use. Electronic devices still would not be permitted during class periods, in bathrooms or in locker rooms.

Schools often share updates on cellphone practices in back-to-school materials, said Jodi Danielson, SPPS director of schools and learning and facilitator of the district’s cellphone policy workgroup, last week.

“So that’s really where parents will be able to hear about and plan for any changes that they might experience at their school,” Danielson said.

According to the policy, staff will refer to the Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook when responding to policy violations. This can include students losing the privilege to bring devices such as cellphones to school.

Legislation

Legislation introduced in January would require that school districts’ cellphone policies, starting in the 2026-27 school year, prohibit cellphones and smartwatches for students in kindergarten through eighth grade and prohibit them in classrooms for students in grades nine through 12. It allows some exceptions, such as students with medical conditions requiring monitoring or students with individual education plans or other exceptions set by the principal.

Implementation planning for the new policy is expected to happen through the spring and summer, according to Danielson. The policy begins district-wide on Sept. 2.

See the full approved policy available on the SPPS website by going to spps.org/about/board-of-education/2025-meeting-materials.

The policy can be found by going to the Board of Education section and selecting the Feb. 18 BoardBook.

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By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is falsely claiming that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments.

Over the past few days, President Donald Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk have said on social media and in press briefings that people who are 100, 200 and even 300 years old are improperly getting benefits — a “HUGE problem,” Musk wrote, as his Department of Government Efficiency digs into federal agencies to root out waste, fraud and abuse.

It is true that improper payments have been made, including some to dead people. But the numbers thrown out by Musk and the White House are overstated and misrepresent Social Security data.

Here are the facts:

What has the Trump administration said about payments to centenarians?

On Tuesday, Trump said at a press briefing in Florida that “we have millions and millions of people over 100 years old” receiving Social Security benefits. “They’re obviously fraudulent or incompetent,” Trump said.

“If you take all of those millions of people off Social Security, all of a sudden we have a very powerful Social Security with people that are 80 and 70 and 90, but not 200 years old,” he said. He also said that there’s one person in the system listed as 360 years old.

Late Monday, Musk posted a slew of posts on his social media platform X, including: “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” and “Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as “ALIVE” when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem. Obviously. Some of these people would have been alive before America existed as a country. Think about that for a second …”

How big of a problem is Social Security fraud?

A July 2024 report from Social Security’s inspector general states that from fiscal years 2015 through 2022, the agency paid out almost $8.6 trillion in benefits, including $71.8 billion — or less than 1% — in improper payments. Most of the erroneous payments were overpayments to living people.

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In addition, in early January, the U.S. Treasury clawed back more than $31 million in a variety of federal payments— not just Social Security payments— that improperly went to dead people, a recovery that former Treasury official David Lebryk said was “just the tip of the iceberg.”

The money was reclaimed as part of a five-month pilot program after Congress gave the Department of Treasury temporary access to the Social Security Administration’s “Full Death Master File” for three years as part of the omnibus appropriations bill in 2021. The SSA maintains the most complete federal database of individuals who have died, and the file contains more than 142 million records, which go back to 1899, according to the Treasury.

Treasury estimated in January that it would recover more than $215 million during its three-year access period, which runs from December 2023 through 2026.

So are tens of millions of people over 100 years old receiving benefits?

No.

Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the COBOL programming language, which has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago. The news organization WIRED first reported on the use of COBOL programming language at the Social Security Administration.

Additionally, a series of reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which included roughly 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but were not marked as deceased. This does not mean, however, that these individuals were receiving benefits.

The agency decided not to update the database because of the cost to do so, which would run upward of $9 million.

A July 2023 Social Security OIG report states that “almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.” And, as of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.

What are some of the concerns about misinformation on Social Security payments?

Chuck Blahous, a senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said, “Two cheers for Elon Musk if he can root out and put a stop to improper payments.”

But to pick the places in the federal government where error rates are high, “Social Security would be near the bottom of the list, not near the top,” Blahous said. “Medicaid improper payment rates are quite substantial, and soared after the Medicaid expansion of the ACA.”

“By all means — go after any improper payments that are found, but let’s not pretend that’s where the system’s biggest financial problems are,” he said.

Sita Nataraj Slavov, a professor of public policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, said the claims by Musk and Trump will make people think the solutions to the government’s financial problems are simpler than they appear.

“The real concern is that this claim may mislead people into thinking there’s an easy fix to Social Security’s financial problems — that we can somehow restore solvency without making sacrifices through higher taxes or lower benefits,” Slavov said. “This is simply not true.”

What does the White House say about the criticism?

Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, referred back to the Social Security’s inspector general report.

“A previous investigation revealed the SSA paid at least $71.8 billion in improper payments,” she said. “The Social Security Administration is now working to find even more waste, fraud, and abuse in the Administration’s whole-of-government effort to protect American taxpayers.”

By ELÉONORE HUGHES and MAURICIO SAVARESE, Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s prosecutor-general on Tuesday formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat, in a plot that included a plan to poison his successor and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and kill a Supreme Court judge.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet alleges that Bolsonaro and 33 others participated in a plan to remain in power. The alleged plot, he wrote, included a plan to poison Lula and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of the former president.

“The members of the criminal organization structured a plan at the presidential palace to attack institutions, aiming to bring down the system of the powers and the democratic order, which received the sinister name of ‘Green and Yellow Dagger,’” Gonet wrote in a 272-page indictment. “The plan was conceived and taken to the knowledge of the president, and he agreed to it.”

In November, Brazil’s Federal Police filed a 884-page report with Gonet detailing the scheme. They allege a systematic effort to sow distrust in the electoral system, drafting a decree to provide legal cover for the plot, pressuring top military brass to go along with the plan and inciting a riot in the capital.

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The Supreme Court will analyze the charges and, if accepted, Bolsonaro will stand trial.

The far-right leader denies wrongdoing. “I have no concerns about the accusations, zero,” Bolsonaro told journalists earlier on Tuesday during a visit to the Senate in Brasilia.

“Have you seen the coup decree, by any chance? You haven’t. Neither have I,” he added.

A lawyer for Bolsonaro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As well as participating in a coup d’état, the 34 defendants are accused of participating in an armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, damage qualified by violence and serious threat against the state’s assets, and deterioration of listed heritage, according to a statement from the Prosecutor General’s press office.

Gonet said the criminal organization he charged “had as leaders the (then) president himself and his running mate, Gen. Braga Netto.”

“Both accepted, stimulated, and performed acts that are described in our criminal legislation as attacking the existence and the Independence of (the branches) of power and of the democratic rule,” Gonet wrote in his report.

Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.