LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Republican governor of Arkansas, and Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, share little ideologically, but both have been supporters of an idea that is rapidly gaining bipartisanship in the states: Student cell phones it should be banned during the school day.
At least eight states have enacted such bans in the past two years, and several more are considering proposals this year.
Here’s a look at the state’s push for such bans.
The impetus behind the cellphone ban has been concerns about the impact of screen time on children’s mental health and complaints from teachers that cellphones have become a constant distraction in the classroom.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called the Congress requires warning labels about the effects of social media platforms on young people’s lives, he said that schools should offer phone-free hours.
Nationally, 77% of US schools say they ban cell phones at school for non-academic use, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But this number is misleading. This does not mean that students comply with these prohibitions or that all these schools comply.
Kim Whitman, co-founder of the Phone Free School Movement, said the issue is growing as parents and teachers in both red and blue states grapple with the effects of mobile devices on children.
“It doesn’t matter if you live in a big city or a rural town, urban or suburban, all kids are struggling and need that seven-hour break from the pressures of phones and social media during the school day,” she said.
At least eight states—California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia—have enacted measures to ban or restrict student cell phone use in schools.
There are many policies. Florida became the first state to outlaw phones in school, passing a 2023 law requiring all public schools to ban cell phone use during class and block access to district Wi-Fi social networks.
A 2024 California law requires the state’s nearly 1,000 school districts to create their own cell phone policies by July 2026.
Several other states have not banned phones, but have encouraged school districts to implement such restrictions or provided funding to keep phones away during the day.
Sanders announced a pilot program last year to provide grants to schools that adopt phone-free policies and more than 100 schools signed on. In his State of the State address this week, Sanders proposed an outright ban.
“We will ban cell phones in our schools, from bell to bell, so that our children are not distracted, in or out of class,” Sanders said.
Other governors who have recently called for bans include New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte, Iowa’s Kim Reynolds and Nebraska’s Jim Pillen, who were sworn in this month. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has hinted that she will seek a statewide policy, but has not offered specifics.
Cell phone bans have drawn opposition some parents they say that their children should contact them directly in case of emergency.
Some parents have expressed it recent school shootings where having access to a mobile phone was the only way some students were able to communicate with relatives they thought might be the last time.
But supporters of the bans point out that student phones could pose additional risks by distracting students in an emergency or revealing their location in an active shooter situation.
Parents who oppose the ban also said they want their children to have access to phones for other needs, such as coordinating transportation.
The president of the National Union of Parents, Keri Rodrigues, said that she agrees about the dangers of social media for children, but that the bans requested by the states are taking too broad a view. Banning devices during the school day won’t solve underlying problems like bullying or the dangers of social media, she said.
“We haven’t done our job as adults to try to teach our kids the skills they need to really navigate this technology,” she said. “We just throw the can down the street and into the end of the pool when they’re alone after school.”
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Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut, Margery Beck, Holly Ramer and Anthony Izaguire contributed to this report.
