New Jersey Phone Ban in Schools

Governor Phil Murphy proposed a policy to ban cellphones in schools K-12 in New Jersey to create “phone-free schools”. The state Senate unanimously passed a bill that requires the NJ Department of Education to create a model policy that school districts can follow if they’d like to.

The reason behind banning phones is to help increase grades, and concentration within classrooms and to help mental health. California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana Minnesota, Ohio, and South Carolina have already adopted bans or require school districts to create a policy that bans cellphones in the classroom and more states are following that path.

So far in New Jersey, the schools are not required to adopt this policy but are strongly encouraged to. Parents, students, and teachers alike are split on the issue. Some people think it is a great idea because it will remove distractions in the classroom. Others are worried that students would not be able to contact anyone in case of an emergency.

The Woodbury School District was quick to adopted the ban on cell phones in classrooms. On February 19th, 2025, Governor Murphy went and talked with the students there to see the effects and how the students felt about the ban. Cassandra Gallagher is a senior at Woodbury Jr/Sr High School who talked to him, and she shared some insight on her thoughts about not only the meeting but the ban itself.

She feels that the ban helped tremendously with how much students are actively paying attention. It has decreased the number of distractions in the classrooms overall, and now teachers don’t have to constantly remind students to put their phones away. Participation of students has gone up, especially in group projects, where people are more willing to share the work.

Woodbury enforces the ban by having students put their phones in a Yonder pouch, when you walk into school in the morning, you have to show that your phone is in there. During the school day, the pouch locks and so you don’t have access to it. While students can always find loopholes or ways to get by this, they are still much less likely to have their phone out during class as they are afraid of getting a detention or a call home.

Many students and parents are worried that they can’t contact their child if the student’s phone is locked in a pouch. At Woodbury, teachers and hall monitors can unlock the pouches so if that child really needs to contact their parents, they can just go up to them and ask for their pouch unlocked. After they are done contacting their parent, the teacher can then lock the pouch again. If they are in some type of major emergency, the office has a button that immediately unlocks all the pouches. Cassandra shared that because of this, she feels very safe, despite her phone being locked in a pouch throughout the school day.

At Gateway, while we don’t have pouches that lock your phones away, there are rules in place to restrict phone usage. Posters are up on the wall to tell students that phones shouldn’t be used in classrooms. The enforcers, however, are the teachers. Teachers are allowed to take your phone or tell you to put it away if they see you on it. Sometimes, though, students push back on this policy and there is only so much a teacher can do. It also depends on the teacher’s point of view on how to handle phones in their classroom. Think about your experiences in the classrooms with cellphone usage. What do you think? Should cell phones be banned in schools?