Students at a public science college sit at desks during English classes in Warr Acres, Oklahoma, in August 2025. More states are considering joining Oklahoma in enforcing strict bell-to-ring cell phone bans. (Photo: Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)
The pace of school cellphone bans has reached more than half of states as teachers, superintendents and education experts praise the policies as a way to improve student achievement and mental health and rebuild a sense of community that many say has been undermined by students’ addiction to screens.
The question now for many states and school districts is not whether to remove distracting devices from students every day, but for how long.
States that have passed laws requiring some type of cellphone policy are now considering going further and enforcing 24-hour bans, even for high school students. The idea was met with opposition from students, but also from teachers and parents, who claim that strict bans from bell to bell are not necessary. Some say they worry about safety in the event of a school shooting or other threat.
Education experts say newfangled initiatives to ban school phones have gained momentum after the pandemic changed how students operate technology and interrupted crucial in-person classroom experiences. Kara Stern, director of education and engagement at SchoolStatus, a data collection company that helps K-12 districts with attendance and other school issues, said smartphones have moved from being communication tools during remote learning to sources of isolation once students return to classrooms.
“During remote learning, phones have become the primary way children have fun and stay connected,” Stern said. “But as schools reopened, phones went from being a tool for connection to being a tool for disconnection.”
Currently, 38 states and Washington, D.C., have implemented some form of statewide restriction or requirement on districts to limit student phone operate. Of those, approximately 18 states and districts have all-day bans or comprehensive statewide restrictions (including during and outside school hours).
Despite widespread adoption and support of cell phone restrictions in schools, compliance remains uneven, according to a 2025 University of Southern California study test. Researchers found that most students continued to operate their phones during the school day, regardless of restrictions.
Still, more than half of teens surveyed said law enforcement is stricter this school year than last 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 is not designed for learning.”
Push for broader bans
Georgia belongs to the states considering a bell-to-bell policy for all public secondary schools. This comes a year after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the ban for grades K-8.
Students pay attention. At East Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, students and teachers offered mixed views regarding bans on the operate of mobile phones. In a student-led news program that aired last fall, some students expressed concerns for their safety, while some teachers were bullish on the idea that the ban would be effective at the high school level.
Republican state representative Scott Hilton, who proposed the up-to-date law, he said Georgia Recorder that the ban for younger students helped families become accustomed to the bell-to-bell ban.
“I was amazed by the positive response from all the constituencies, teachers, administrators, parents and even in many cases students who experienced the difference and said, ‘Oh wow, I kind of like this,’” Hilton said.
Several states focus their bans on banning cell phone operate “during class time,” which does not necessarily include free time such as lunch. Kansas lawmakers do pushing forward regarding the prohibition of operate during teaching activities; this would replace previous measures that allowed local districts discretion over cell phone operate in schools. Michigan lawmakers passed a similar bill last month; it was sent on Monday to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Similar teaching time bills were passed last year in Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin. In Oregon, Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek issued an executive order in July requiring all counties to adopt bell-to-bell cellphone bans by Jan. 1. Several districts said the mandate had expired better than expectedand some superintendents say they have seen more interactions between students.
Bell-to-bell cell phone restrictions are being considered or implemented in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and New York recently introduced them. The Massachusetts bill goes further than most by adding smartphones, tablets and Bluetooth devices to the list of banned electronic devices.
Teaching a class where students are on their phones is like trying to teach over a loudspeaker at Disney World. The environment is simply not designed for learning.
– Kara Stern, director of education and engagement at SchoolStatus, a data collection company
Most of the regulations reviewed by Stateline include exceptions to the bans for students with special needs and emergencies.
According to a review by Education Week. However, the review shows that there were 18 shootings last year, resulting in seven deaths.
In Georgia, State Superintendent Richard Woods, a Republican, told reporters that he had heard firsthand from shooting survivors about the importance of having a cell phone on hand for safety reasons.
“Do I support this? Absolutely” – Woods he saidreferring to the ban on using mobile phones. “But I think we have to find a middle ground and not go to extremes.”
What works best?
According to Pew Research Center vote Released last summer, it found that 74% of U.S. adults support bans on cell phone operate in classrooms for middle and high school students, up from 68% in fall 2024. The poll found that significantly fewer adults (19%) oppose cell phone bans in classrooms, and 7% are unsure.
For proponents of phone-free education, the gold standard of cell phone policy is “ring-to-ring” restrictions, which involve no access to the device’s memory.
A 2025 article in JAMA Pediatrics reported that teenagers ages 13–18 spend an average of 90 minutes on their phones in school, but little has been written about what students do during this time.
“Although 99.7% of U.S. public school principals say their school has a smartphone policy, few studies have objectively examined smartphone app use in schools,” the study abstract said.
Stern said she saw firsthand the effects of a “consistent bell-to-bell policy” on her own son. When his phone broke in the eighth grade, he was afraid to go to school without it. But after the first day, he returned home and told Stern that he had played soccer during recess, met up-to-date classmates and had a “really good day” – better than usual.
Kim Whitman, co-founder of Smartphone Free Childhood US, and other education experts believe cellphone bans will reflect changes in public health that have occurred in the past: like banning smoking in schools – and perhaps redefine what it means to be in a classroom post-pandemic.
“Today we cannot imagine allowing smoking in schools,” Whitman said. “I think in five to 10 years we’ll be saying the same about cell phones — wondering how we even allowed them into classrooms.”
Whitman, who studied and rated states on the effectiveness of cellphone bans, found that North Dakota and Rhode Island were the only states that deserved high marks for adopting and enforcing bell-to-bell policies.
Despite claims from adults who love no-phone politics, students are not so convinced. According to data, only 41% of teenagers support a ban on the operate of cell phones in middle and high school classes questionnaire published in January by the Pew Research Center.
The USC study finds that the greatest percentage of teens who like certain no-phone policies attend schools where policies allow phone operate during non-school hours.
Editor’s note: This story has been edited to correct that it was Kara Stern of SchoolStatus who told Stateline about her son’s experience with a phone-free day.
Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at: sequenceira@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by state linewhich is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes the Ohio Capital Journal and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
