Fortunately, action is finally being taken. The last few years have seen a significant uptick in policies meant to address this issue. For years, schools tried half-measures. Phones allowed during lunch. Phones banned during instructional time. Phones tucked into pockets, hoodies, pencil cases, or passed quietly between friends. The results were predictable. Teachers became enforcers. Administrators became referees. And learning continued to lose ground.

In the last few years, a better approach has emerged.

Across the country, lawmakers and school leaders are moving toward “bell-to-bell” policies that remove and/or restrict personal, internet-connected devices from the school day entirely. As of now, 28 U.S. states have some form of school cellphone restriction, with 19 implementing full bell-to-bell policies. Internationally, the trend is even more decisive. Australia banned social media access for anyone under 16 at the end of last year. Spain just followed suit. Similar legislation is moving forward in France and the European Union as a whole. Denmark enacted a bell-to-bell device ban and returned to physical textbooks. Quebec has enforced all-day cellphone restrictions in schools for years.

And it’s working. Schools with strict, consistently enforced policies report calmer buildings, fewer conflicts, stronger engagement, and improved academic focus. Research backs this up. It can take anywhere from eight to 23 minutes for the average person to refocus on a task after an interruption. The average teen receives 237 app notifications per day and spends roughly 70 minutes of the school day on their phone. That adds up to the loss of nearly an entire instructional day every week.

“Imagine you are in your world on your phone in the hallway for four minutes, and then you go back into the classroom,” said Kristen Beddard, co-lead of PA Unplugged, an advocacy group that is helping lead the charge to keep kids away from their phones during the school day. “These teachers are having to wait anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes for kids to finally get back into what they should be thinking about.”

Pennsylvania currently ranks near the bottom nationally when it comes to strong, enforceable phone-free school policies. That may soon change.

In February, the state Senate passed Senate Bill 1014 by a vote of 46-1, which would require public school districts to adopt bell-to-bell policies restricting student possession and prohibiting student use of personal internet-connected mobile devices during the school day. Now the bill goes to the House of Representatives for consideration.

“We thank Sens. Robinson, Santarsiero, and Hughes for leading a bipartisan coalition to take this important step, which will support Pennsylvania’s 1.7 million public school students, their overall well-being, and their academic achievement,” said PSEA Vice President Jeff Ney, who testified before the state House Education and Health committees on this issue in

November. Ney also addressed a frequently stated concern among parents.

“I know that many of us worry about what greater restrictions on student mobile devices might mean in an emergency,” he said. “Security experts tell us that mobile devices often get in the way of students listening to and following directions during emergency situations at school.”

How these policies are implemented should be left up to each individual school district, Ney said, and the state should not interfere with school districts that have already successfully restricted student possession and use of mobile devices. That language is written into Senate Bill 1014.

The important thing, educators across the commonwealth agree, is that enacting a clear statewide policy matters.

“Without statewide backing, the progress we have made will erode away,” said Max Kraft, a teacher in the Bethlehem Area School District, which has had an instructional-time no-cellphones policy in place since the 2023-24 school year. “Senate Bill 1014 would give districts the muscle to enforce rules consistently.”