More states introducing legislation for phone-free schools

To help reduce classroom distractions, curb online bullying, and encourage face-to-face interactions among students, more states are introducing legislation on cell phone use during school.

North Dakota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Tennessee are working to join the dozens of other states with laws and policies on cell phone use in schools. South Carolina’s cell phone ban just went into effect after winter break, with school districts required to implement the state’s model policy by January 2025 in order to receive state aid.

During the 2024 legislative session, Minnesota lawmakers mandated school districts adopt a cell phone policy by March 15, 2025. As my colleague Tom Steward previously covered here, a handful of school districts had cell phone policies in place prior to the legislature’s directive.

Some policies, like the Mankato school district’s, prohibit cell phone use during instructional time, requiring them to be on silent and kept out of sight, but allow high school students to use their phones in the hallways during passing time and at lunch. Younger students can’t pull out their phones at all during the day. The Anoka-Hennepin school district modified its phone guidelines at the middle and high school levels during summer 2023, removing cell phone use from the classroom to “increase student engagement and learning, and limit the negative impacts of social media.” High school students can use their phones during passing time and at lunch.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), who administers the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the only cell phone school policy resulting in a statistically significant reduction in distractions as measured during math lessons was a complete cell phone ban on school premises.

A September/October 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that, overall, roughly seven in 10 Americans (68 percent) support a ban on middle and high school students using cell phones during class; about a third (36 percent) support an all-day ban. A March/April 2024 survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of EdChoice found that teachers are less supportive of cell phones in school and in the classroom than parents — 71 percent of school parents said that students should be able to have cell phones in school compared to about half (56 percent) of polled teachers; 38 percent of parents support kids having cell phones in the classroom compared to only 17 percent of teachers.

An August/September 2024 poll released by the National Parents Union found that among parents whose child’s school has a phone-free policy, 62 percent said cell phones cannot be used during class and academic instruction but are allowed at certain times outside of class; 38 percent said use was completely banned, even outside of class. Seventy-one percent of parents stated their school’s cell phone policy is “about right,” and 76 percent of parents said the cell phone policy at their child’s school is preventing distractions during instruction time.