As school cellphone bans gain in popularity, lawmakers say it’s time to go bell-to-bell

This article was originally published by Stateline.

The momentum behind cellphone bans in schools has reached more than half the states, as teachers, superintendents and education experts praise these policies as a way to boost student achievement and mental health, and to rebuild a sense of community that many believe has been diminished by students’ addiction to screens.

Now, the question for many states and school districts isn’t whether to remove distracting devices from students each day, but for how long.

States that have passed laws requiring some kind of cellphone policy now are considering going further and mandating daylong bans, even for high schoolers. The idea has gotten some pushback from students, but also from teachers and parents who say strict bell-to-ban bans aren’t necessary. Some say they worry about safety in the event of a school shooting or other emergency.

Education experts say the modern push for school phone bans accelerated after the pandemic reshaped how students use technology and interrupted crucial in-person experiences in a classroom. Kara Stern, director of education and engagement for SchoolStatus, a data-collecting firm that assists K-12 districts with attendance and other school issues, said smartphones shifted from being tools of connection during remote learning to sources of isolation once students returned to classrooms.

“During remote learning, phones became a primary way kids entertained themselves and stayed connected,” Stern said. “But once schools reopened, phones stopped being a connection tool and started creating disconnection.”

Currently, 38 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted some form of statewide restriction or requirement for districts to limit student phone use. Of those, roughly 18 states and the district have full-day bans or comprehensive statewide restrictions (including during classroom and noninstructional time).

Despite widespread adoption of school cellphone restrictions and support for them, compliance remains uneven, according to a 2025 University of Southern California study. Most students continue to use phones during the school day regardless of restrictions, the researchers found.

Still, more than half of teens surveyed said enforcement this school year is stricter than it was the previous year.

“Teaching a class where students are on their phones is like trying to teach at Disney World over a loudspeaker,” Stern said. “The environment just isn’t designed for learning.”

Pushing For Broader Bans

Georgia is among the states considering a bell-to-bell policy for all public high schools. This comes a year after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a ban for K-8 grades.

Students are paying attention. At East Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, students and teachers offered mixed views on cellphone bans. On a student-run news broadcast aired last fall, some students expressed concern over their safety, while some teachers were bullish on the idea that a ban would be effective at the high school level.

Republican state Rep. Scott Hilton, who proposed the new law, told the Georgia Recorder that the ban for younger students helped families get used to a bell-to-bell ban.

“I’ve just been blown away at the positive reaction across the board from all different constituencies, teachers, administrators, parents and even in a lot of cases, students who have experienced a difference and said, ‘Oh, wow, I kind of like this,’” Hilton said.

Several states focus their bans on prohibiting cellphone use “during instructional time,” which wouldn’t necessarily include free time such as lunch. Kansas lawmakers are pushing ahead on a ban on use during instructional time; it would supersede previous action that allowed local district discretion on cellphone use in schools. Michigan legislators passed a similar bill last month; it was sent to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Monday.

Similar instruction time bills passed in Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin last year. In Oregon, Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek issued an executive order in July requiring every district to adopt bell-to-bell cellphone bans by Jan. 1. Several districts have said the mandate has gone better than expected, with some superintendents saying they’ve seen more interaction among students.

Bell-to-bell cellphone restrictions are being considered or advanced in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and were recently enacted in New York. The Massachusetts bill goes further than most, adding smartphones, tablets and Bluetooth devices to its list of banned electronic devices.

Most legislation reviewed by Stateline includes exceptions to the bans for students with special needs and in cases of emergency.

School shootings in 2025 fell to the lowest number since 2020, according to a review by Education Week. Still, there were 18 shootings that left seven people dead last year, the review found.

In Georgia, state Superintendent Richard Woods, a Republican, told reporters he’s heard firsthand from survivors of a shooting there about the importance of having cellphones on hand for safety reasons.

“Do I support this? Absolutely,” Woods said, referring to the cellphone ban. “But I think we have to find a sweet spot and not move to the extremes.”

What Works Best?

According to a Pew Research Center poll released last summer, 74% of U.S. adults support banning cellphones during class for middle and high school students, up from 68% in fall 2024. Far fewer adults (19%) oppose classroom bans, and 7% are unsure, the poll found.

For advocates of a phone-free education, the gold standard of cellphone policies is a bell-to-bell restriction with inaccessible storage for the device.

A 2025 article in JAMA Pediatrics reported that teens ages 13-18 spend an average of 90 minutes on their phones during school, but that little has been written about what students are doing during that time.

“Although 99.7% of US public school principals report their school has a smartphone policy, few studies have objectively examined smartphone app usage during school,” an abstract of the study reads.

Kim Whitman, a co-head of Smartphone Free Childhood US, said she saw the effects of a “consistent bell-to-bell” policy firsthand with her own son. When his phone broke in eighth grade, he dreaded going to school without it. But after his first day, he came home and told Whitman that he played soccer at recess, met new classmates and had “a really good day” — one he said was better than usual.

Whitman and other education experts believe cellphone bans will mirror past public health reversals — like banning smoking in schools — and possibly redefine what it means to be in a classroom post-pandemic.

“Today we can’t imagine allowing smoking in schools,” Whitman said. “I think in five to 10 years we’ll say the same thing about cellphones — wondering how we ever allowed them into classrooms.”

Whitman, who has examined and graded states according to the efficacy of their cellphone bans, said that North Dakota and Rhode Island are the only states warranting high marks for their adoption and enforcement of bell-to-bell policies.

Despite claims from adults who love the phone-free policies, students aren’t as convinced. Only 41% of teens support cellphone bans in middle and high school classrooms, according to polling by Pew Research Center released in January.

The largest share of teens who like certain phone-free policies are in schools where the policy allows phones during noninstructional time throughout the day, according to the USC study.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.