Cellphone Ban Adopters Share How They Did It—and How It’s Changed Students

By Elizabeth Heubeck

Competing for the attention of tweens and teens is not a new battle for teachers. But as the use of cellphones by middle and high school students has surged in recent years, many teachers have begun to admit defeat.

Tired of the immediate and near-constant disruptions that cellphones pose in classrooms, as well as the adverse effects they can cause beyond school buildings (from online bullying to increasing rates of anxiety and related mental health challenges), many school officials and policymakers have begun to crack down on their use during the school day. (Even so, there is not yet much research on whether cellphone restrictions in schools work.)

About half of all states have passed legislation restricting or outright banning cellphone use by students during the school day, and more are likely to follow. In the rest of the country, some principals aren’t waiting for legislators to give them the green light to curtail students’ cellphone use during school.

These early adopters are moving ahead with policies to ban or restrict personal device use during the school day; many of them debuted at the start of the 2024-25 school year. No two cellphone policies look exactly alike. The methods and policy details vary widely.

But every school that chooses to initiate a more restrictive cellphone policy in the coming months or years will need to get key constituents on board—teachers and staff, parents, and students—in order to make the policy a success. Here’s how three administrators did it.

Read the full article here.

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