Key findings
- Most US states now restrict phones in school. Education Week counted at least 39 states plus DC requiring districts to ban or restrict student phone use (July 2026). We verified 25 enacted state measures one by one; 13 of them reach the whole school day for at least some grades.
- Bell-to-bell is the new default. Of the states that acted in 2026, all but Michigan chose a school-day rule: New Jersey, Indiana, Kansas, Hawaii, Georgia (high schools), Maryland and Illinois.
- Public support keeps rising. Pew: 77% of US adults back class-time bans in middle and high school (68% in 2024), and 48% back all-day bans versus 43% opposed, the first year support outnumbers opposition.
- Teens disagree. Only 41% of teens 13–17 back a class-time ban and 17% an all-day ban (Pew data reported by Education Week).
- The research is mixed, and effects are small. A Florida study found test scores rose by about 1.1 percentile points in year two of a ban, after a first-year suspension spike. A 2025 English study of 30 schools found no difference in wellbeing or attainment.
- Data: free CSV of the state table, CC BY 4.0.
A school cellphone ban is now the norm in the United States, not the exception. Education Week counted at least 39 states plus the District of Columbia requiring districts to ban or restrict student phones as of July 2026, and the newest laws almost all keep phones away for the whole school day. Support among adults has climbed for three straight years. What the laws can deliver is less clear: the best studies find small academic gains, a short-term rise in discipline, and in one large English study, no measurable difference at all.
This page collects the state laws we could verify one by one into a downloadable table, then sets out the polling, the research in both directions and a practical checklist for schools and families.
How many states restrict phones in school?
The answer ranges from 33 to 41 states, depending on what counts as a ban. Three trackers count differently:
| Tracker | Date | Count | What it counts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Education Week | July 28, 2026 | At least 39 states + DC | States requiring districts to ban or restrict phones |
| Ballotpedia | March 26, 2026 | 33 states | Statewide K-12 cellphone bans |
| Ballotpedia | March 26, 2026 | 41 states | Any law addressing phones in school (8 only encourage limits or require an unspecified policy) |
| Paragon Health Institute | March 24, 2026 | 35 states + DC | Some restriction for at least K-8; 20 states + DC bell-to-bell for all grades |
Table 1. Published counts of US state school phone restrictions, 2026.
The gap matters when you read headlines. A state that tells districts “write a phone policy” (Minnesota, for example) counts in the broad totals but does not guarantee a ban in any school. Ballotpedia notes that statewide policies took effect under 18 Republican trifectas, 6 Democratic trifectas and 9 divided governments, so this is one of the few education policies with support across party lines. Florida was the first state to legislate, with HB 379 in 2023.
State-by-state table: 25 measures we verified
We list only states whose law or policy we could confirm in a named source. No public tracker we could open gives a complete 50-state table with bill numbers, so this table is a verified subset, not a full census. Each row in the CSV links to its source.
| State | Measure | Type | Starts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | HB 2484 (2025) | District policy limiting use during the school day | 2025-26 |
| Arkansas | Act 122 (2025) | Bell-to-bell | 2025-26 |
| California | AB 3216 (2024) | District policy limiting or prohibiting use | Policies by July 1, 2026 |
| Colorado | HB25-1135 (2025) | District policy required | Policies by July 1, 2026 |
| Florida | HB 379 (2023), HB 1105 (2025) | Class time; bell-to-bell for elementary and middle; high school pilot | K-8 full day from 2025-26 |
| Georgia | HB 340 (2025), HB 1009 (2026) | Bell-to-bell | K-8 July 1, 2026; high school by 2027-28 |
| Hawaii | Board of Education policy (Feb. 12, 2026) | School day, most grades | 2026-27 |
| Illinois | SB 2427 (signed July 28, 2026) | Bell-to-bell; districts may allow high school use at lunch | By 2027-28 |
| Indiana | SB 185 (2024), SB 78 (2026) | Class time, expanded to bell-to-bell | SB 78 signed March 5, 2026 |
| Kansas | HB 2299 (signed March 20, 2026) | Bell-to-bell, phones stored away from student | Policies certified by Sept. 1, 2026 |
| Louisiana | Uniform state rule | Instructional time | 2024-25 |
| Maryland | Phone-Free Schools Act (May 2026) | Bell-to-bell incl. lunch and passing periods | Policies by 2027-28 |
| Michigan | HB 4141 (signed Feb. 10, 2026) | In class | 2026-27 |
| Minnesota | SF 3567 (2024) | District policy required, form not set | Policies by March 2025 |
| New Jersey | S3695 (signed Jan. 8, 2026) | No non-academic device use during the school day, K-12 | 2026-27 |
| New York | 2025 state budget | Bell-to-bell | 2025-26 |
| North Carolina | H959 | District policy banning use in instructional time | In effect |
| North Dakota | HB 1160 (2025) | District policy required | Aug. 1, 2025 |
| Ohio | HB 250 | District policy required | Policies by July 2025 |
| Oregon | Governor’s executive order (2025) | Ban by executive order; scope not reported | 2025-26 |
| South Carolina | Budget proviso + state model policy | Bell-to-bell | January 2025 |
| Texas | HB 1481 (signed June 20, 2025) | Whole school day | 2025-26 |
| Utah | SB 178 (2025) | District policy required | July 1, 2025 |
| Virginia | Executive Order 33 (2024) | Bell-to-bell | Jan. 1, 2025 |
| West Virginia | HB 2003 (2025) | District policy required | July 9, 2025 |
Table 2. Verified state school phone measures, snapshot October 15, 2026. Sources: Ballotpedia, Rockefeller Institute of Government, Texas Tribune, WABE, WTTW, WMDT, ABC News. Full rows with links in the CSV.
Counted from the table: 13 of the 25 measures reach the full school day for at least some grades, 3 cover class time only, 8 require or shape a district policy, and Oregon’s scope was not reported. Not yet law: Pennsylvania’s SB 1014 passed the Senate 46-1 and the House passed a companion bill, but we found no signed law as of October 15, 2026. South Dakota’s SB 198 failed in the House 28-39, and New Mexico’s SB 23 died after passing the Senate. Delaware offers grants ($250,000 appropriated) for storage pouches instead of a mandate.
Bell-to-bell or class time: what’s the difference?
A bell-to-bell ban covers the whole day; a class-time ban covers lessons only. The difference shows up at lunch. Under Michigan’s 2026 law, students can check phones between classes. Under Texas HB 1481, schools must either keep devices off campus or store them for the day, and the law reaches tablets and smartwatches as well as phones.
The trend since 2025 is clearly toward full-day rules. Indiana moved from a class-time law (2024) to bell-to-bell (2026). Florida did the same for elementary and middle schools in 2025 and is piloting a high school version in six counties, with a state report due by December 1, 2026. Georgia started with K-8 and added high schools in May 2026.
Educators give a practical reason. Paragon Health Institute reports that 28% of educators saw disruption when phones were stored and out of reach, compared with nearly half when students kept phones on them (Paragon does not name the underlying survey, so treat this as secondary). Two newer laws add a safeguard: Illinois bars fines, suspensions and expulsions as enforcement, and Maryland bars suspension or expulsion solely for a phone violation.
Does a phone ban raise grades? The evidence both ways
The honest summary: small gains in some studies, none in others, and a cost in discipline early on. Here are the studies most often cited.
| Study | Setting | Design | Main result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Figlio & Özek, NBER WP 34388 (2025) | One large urban Florida district | Quasi-experimental; compares schools by pre-ban phone use | Scores up in year 2 (about 1.1 percentile points, authors’ estimate via Chalkbeat); suspensions up to 12% higher in year 1, mostly back to baseline in year 2; fewer unexcused absences |
| Beland & Murphy, Labour Economics (2016) | 91 schools in 4 English cities | Difference-in-differences, observational | +0.06 standard deviations overall; +0.14 SD for low achievers; no significant effect for high achievers |
| Goodyear et al., SMART Schools, Lancet Regional Health Europe (Feb. 2025) | 30 English secondary schools, 1,227 pupils aged 12–15 | Cross-sectional comparison of 20 restrictive vs 10 permissive schools | No difference in wellbeing, sleep, attainment or behavior; 0.67 hours less phone use during school time, no difference outside school |
| Kohnstamm Instituut for the Dutch government (2025) | 317 Dutch secondary schools | School-leader survey after the January 2024 ban | 75% reported better concentration; about one-third reported better academic performance (press reports) |
Table 3. Selected studies of school phone restrictions. The Florida paper is a working paper and has not been peer-reviewed.
What the Florida study adds. It is the largest US study so far and the authors, David Figlio and Umut Özek, report larger effects in middle and high school, where phone ownership is more common. They link a large share of the gain to attendance. They also found the early discipline burden fell disproportionately on Black students. Figlio told Chalkbeat that Black students “seem to be accruing fewer of the benefits of the cellphone ban and more of the disciplinary costs.”
What the English studies add. The 2016 effect of 0.06 SD sounds precise but is small; it was concentrated among low-achieving students, which is one argument for bans as an equity measure. The 2025 SMART Schools study found that restrictive schools cut phone use during the day by about 40 minutes but not total daily use, which suggests teens shift the time to evenings. The authors concluded that their findings do not support school-day bans in their current form and called for policies that address use outside school too. Because it is cross-sectional, it cannot prove that bans do nothing either.
For the bigger question of how screen habits relate to achievement outside the school day, see our separate review of screen time and grades.
What do Americans think? Pew’s polling trend
Support for phone bans among US adults has risen every year Pew has asked. The 2026 survey (9,750 adults, May 26 to June 1, 2026) asked about middle and high schools.
Source: Pew Research Center, July 29, 2026. Opposition to all-day bans fell from 53% (2024) to 46% (2025) and 43% (2026).
Pew wrote that “for the first time, more Americans now support than oppose” an all-day ban. Age is the sharpest divide: 85% of adults 65 and older back class-time bans, against 57% of adults under 30. Party matters less than you might expect.
| Group (2026) | Support class-time ban | Support all-day ban |
|---|---|---|
| Ages 18–29 | 57% | 28% |
| Ages 30–49 | 77% | 50% |
| Ages 50–64 | 83% | 55% |
| Ages 65+ | 85% | 57% |
| Republicans and leaners | 81% | 55% |
| Democrats and leaners | 74% | 44% |
| Teens 13–17 (fall 2025, via Education Week) | 41% | 17% |
Table 4. Support for school phone bans by group. Adult figures from Pew’s 2026 survey; teen figures from a Pew survey as reported by Education Week (secondary).
Teachers saw the problem before the laws arrived. In Pew’s 2023 teacher survey, 72% of high school teachers called phone distraction a major problem in their classrooms.
Source: Pew Research Center, survey of more than 2,500 public K-12 teachers, Oct.–Nov. 2023 (published June 12, 2024).
How the US compares with other countries
More than half of the world’s education systems now restrict phones, according to UNESCO figures reported in 2026. UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) team tracks national rules. (For how much time students in other countries spend on schoolwork, see homework hours by country.)
Sources: UNESCO GEM World Education Blog, Jan. 23, 2025 (2023 and 2024); March 2026 figure as reported by The Hitavada quoting UNESCO (secondary; original document not retrieved).
| Country | Rule | Reported outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | National guideline banning phones in secondary classrooms from January 2024 | 75% of 317 schools reported better concentration (school leaders’ views, not test data) |
| England | Government guidance; school-level policies vary | 2016 study: +0.06 SD; 2025 study: no attainment difference |
| France | National smartphone restrictions; an RTL report (October 2026) asked whether a lycée phone ban set off student protests | No outcome data reviewed here |
| Mexico | SEP agreement published September 22, 2026; whole school day incl. recess for basic education; phones may stay in backpacks | Starts November 3, 2026; 81% of 565,396 teachers consulted favored the guidelines |
Table 5. Selected national phone rules outside the US.
Making a ban work: checklist for schools and parents
Implementation decides whether a ban reduces distraction or just moves it. These steps follow the problems the studies and state laws point to.
For schools, in order:
- Decide the scope first (class time or bell-to-bell). Why: the Paragon figures suggest disruption is lower when phones are out of reach, and your state may already require full-day rules.
- Pick storage you can enforce (lockers, pouches, powered off in backpacks). Why: Texas and Georgia let districts choose, and the cost and staff time differ widely.
- Write the exceptions down (IEP and 504 plans, medical devices, English learners, student caregivers, emergencies). Why: Illinois and Maryland list these in law, and families ask about them first.
- Set graduated consequences before day one. Why: the Florida study found suspensions jumped in year one, with uneven effects by race.
- Tell parents how to reach their child. Why: 63% of Massachusetts parents in a MassINC poll wanted exactly that.
- Plan for year two. Why: the Florida gains appeared only after the adjustment year.
Teachers who need routines to fill the time phones used to take can borrow from our classroom management strategies and short brain breaks.
| Symptom after a ban starts | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Discipline referrals spike in the first months | Consequences start too high; enforcement varies by teacher | Use warnings and phone pickup before suspension; audit referrals by student group each term |
| Students use phones in bathrooms and hallways | Class-time-only rule or no storage | Move to bell-to-bell storage or add hallway supervision |
| Parents call the office all day | No communication plan | Publish the office number and a message relay; share the emergency protocol |
| Homework done on phones at night still distracted | Ban covers school hours only | Agree on a home routine (see below) |
Table 6. Common problems after a phone ban, with likely causes and fixes.
For parents: a school ban covers about seven hours. The SMART Schools data suggests total phone time doesn’t fall unless evenings change too. A simple home plan helps: phones charge outside the bedroom, homework happens with notifications off, and a set check-in time replaces texting during the day. Pair that with study methods ranked by research, since short, phone-free practice sessions are where focus pays off most. Our homework planner can block out phone-free study time across the week, and the homework time calculator shows how much nightly work is typical for each grade. More guides are on the parents’ hub.
Methodology and limitations
How we built the table. We started from the state counts published by Ballotpedia (March 2026), Paragon Health Institute (March 2026) and Education Week (July 2026), then confirmed individual states in Ballotpedia’s state list, the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s state table (May 2025), and local news reports of bill signings (Texas Tribune, WABE, WTTW, WMDT, ABC News). We include a state only if a named source gave the bill or policy. All sources were opened on October 15, 2026.
Limitations:
- Not a 50-state census. The NCSL tracker was not accessible and Education Week’s interactive map did not expose state rows, so roughly 14 states counted by trackers are missing from our table. The totals in Table 1 come from the trackers, not from our table.
- Classifications follow the source. For example, the Rockefeller Institute classifies Louisiana as instructional time; some news reports describe stricter rules. Where sources disagreed we used the more conservative label.
- Laws change quickly. Pennsylvania may finish its bill after this snapshot.
- Research quality varies. Only the English studies are peer-reviewed; the Florida paper is a working paper; the Dutch figures are school leaders’ perceptions reported in the press.
- Secondary numbers (the 1.1 percentile points, teen polling, UNESCO’s 2026 figure, Paragon’s disruption figures) are marked as such in the text.
Cite this page
The table and CSV are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please credit The Homework Site and link here; cite the original laws and studies where you can.
Related research: US students’ reading scores on NAEP and PISA, AI policies in 32 large school districts, and our sourced homework statistics.
Sources
- Ballotpedia News, “Kansas becomes thirty-third state to enact a K-12 cellphone ban,” March 26, 2026: news.ballotpedia.org ; state list: news.ballotpedia.org
- Education Week, “Which states ban or restrict cellphones in schools?” (updated July 28, 2026): edweek.org
- Paragon Health Institute, “A growing majority of states are restricting cell phones in schools,” March 24, 2026: paragoninstitute.org
- Rockefeller Institute of Government, “New York and other states enact more school cell phone bans/restrictions,” May 19, 2025: rockinst.org
- Kansas Legislative Research Department, Briefing Book 2026, cellphone policies: klrd.gov
- Texas Tribune on HB 1481: texastribune.org ; WABE on Georgia HB 1009: wabe.org ; WTTW on Illinois SB 2427: news.wttw.com ; WMDT on Maryland: wmdt.com ; Fox29 on Pennsylvania: fox29.com ; ABC News state roundup, Sept. 15, 2025: goodmorningamerica.com
- Pew Research Center, “More Americans now support than oppose all-day school cellphone bans,” July 29, 2026: pewresearch.org ; teachers, June 12, 2024: pewresearch.org
- Education Week on teens’ views, January 2026: edweek.org ; NEPM on the MassINC parent poll, Dec. 5, 2025: nepm.org
- Figlio & Özek, “The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Florida,” NBER Working Paper 34388, October 2025: nber.org ; Chalkbeat coverage, Oct. 20, 2025: chalkbeat.org
- Beland & Murphy, “Ill Communication: Technology, distraction and student performance,” Labour Economics (2016): eprints.lse.ac.uk ; Schools Week on effect sizes: schoolsweek.co.uk
- Goodyear et al., “School phone policies and their association with mental wellbeing, phone use, and social media use (SMART Schools),” Lancet Regional Health Europe, Feb. 4, 2025: research.birmingham.ac.uk
- UNESCO GEM, “To ban or not to ban,” Jan. 23, 2025: world-education-blog.org ; The Hitavada, March 23, 2026: thehitavada.com ; Malay Mail on the Dutch study, July 6, 2025: malaymail.com ; Expansión on Mexico, Sept. 22, 2026: politica.expansion.mx ; ADN40 on the teacher consultation: adn40.mx
Checked October 15, 2026. If your state’s rule is missing or out of date, tell us and we will add it to the next snapshot.
Frequently asked questions
How many states ban cell phones in school?
What is a bell-to-bell phone ban?
Do school phone bans improve grades?
Do parents support school cell phone bans?
Are school phone bans happening outside the US?
Can students with disabilities keep their phones under a ban?
Watch: video explainers
South African news debate on restricting phones and social media in schools, a reminder that the US debate is part of a global one.
Spanish-language report on Mexico's national phone restriction for primary and secondary schools, which takes effect November 3, 2026.
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