What is the best way to handle cellphones in schools?

That’s a question Michigan educators are grappling with this spring after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law a ban on smartphone use in Michigan schools.

The law goes into effect in the school year that begins in August 2026. It requires public and charter K-12 schools to adopt rules prohibiting students from using smartphones during instructional time, but it allows educators and school officials to determine the best way to do that.

The new law includes several exemptions, including medical or emergency use, and does not apply to Michigan’s private schools.

We are University of Michigan faculty in the schools of Public Health, Public Policy and Education, and we are interested in how cellphone access both helps and hurts students in schools.

Many districts already have cellphone policies, but the new law creates an opportunity to look at which policies best support student well-being and academic success.

Drawbacks and benefits to student learning

Cellphones were used by 97% of young people ages 11-17 during the school day in 2022, with both good and bad effects.

Cellphone use can distract students and lead to disengagement from school, impaired learning and poorer mental health. It can also lead to exposure to interpersonal violence, such as bullying or fights, and harm broader well-being.

But students also use phones in beneficial ways, such as monitoring their blood sugar levels, connecting with family and peers, and even contacting digital tip lines to prevent violence.

Defining the array of cellphone policies

As part of a CDC-funded project focused on cellphone policies and health, we collected data on existing cellphone policies in the 2025-26 school year for every school district in Michigan. Our team checked hundreds of local and regional education authority webpages and consulted student handbooks. When digital information was missing, we contacted districts directly. Building on a national teacher survey called Phones in Focus, we recorded not only when phone use is restricted but how schools restrict it, noting cases in which the district policy varied by grade level.

At the time of this writing, our data reflects 779, or 95%, of publicly funded traditional and charter school districts in Michigan.

At the start of the 2025-26 school year, 94.7% of districts had existing mandates, compared to 2.5% of districts that required individual schools to set their own policies.

Just under 3% of all Michigan districts had no stated policy at all. It is possible that these districts communicated a set policy through informal channels or, in practice, were letting schools decide on their own rules.

Among districts with mandated policies, there were important differences in rules relating to cellphones. To help think through policies, we sorted them on two criteria: when policies are enforced and how policies are enforced.

About half of the district policies provided different rules by grade level. In these cases, we include the policies for high school students to generate the statistics below.

When and how to limit use

Let’s start with when: In districts with stated policies, 50% specified “bell-to-bell” restrictions, meaning that students were not permitted to use their phones at any point during the school day, including during lunch or passing periods. The remaining 50% of districts mandated “schedule-based” restrictions, which typically meant that phones were prohibited during instructional time but could be used at other times, such as lunch or between classes.

When it comes to the “how,” districts specified a number of different approaches to enforcing cellphone restrictions.

The most common approach, adopted by 62% of districts, is what we describe as a “no show,” meaning that students are required to keep their phones out of sight, such as in their backpacks or pockets. This policy is used in Alanson Public Schools, for example.

Seventeen percent of districts require students to keep their phones in their lockers throughout the school day. Sturgis Public Schools, a school district that provides special education and early childhood services, is one.

Other school districts enforce stricter policies. Detroit Premier Academy, a charter school, implemented a “no phones” rule that bans phones inside school buildings. Roughly 8% of districts surveyed use this approach.

Another 8% collected phones in each classroom, often using structured, numbered pocket charts or a designated bin.

Less common was the “centralized collection” approach, meaning when students arrive at school, staff collect their phones and store them for the remainder of the day. Stockbridge Community Schools was among the 21 school districts, or about 3%, we found that follow this policy.

The final 2% used lockable pouches.

Location and type of school mattered

We found that policy features were associated with the type and location of districts.

Charter and urban districts were substantially more likely than suburban or rural schools to adopt bell-to-bell policies that prohibit phones during the school day.

Roughly 20% of charter districts prohibited students from bringing phones to school, while 2% of traditional districts adopted this approach.

Traditional districts relied more on “lockers” – 22% – and “classroom collection” – 11% – approaches.

Twenty-five percent of rural, 15% of suburban and 5% of city districts used the lockers approach.

These approaches have important implications for enforcement.

The “no show” and “classroom collection” approaches place most of the enforcement burden on teachers, and both methods require monitoring throughout the school day.

The “centralized collection” and “lockable pouch” approaches place more burden on school administrators, but in theory they require enforcement only at the beginning of the day.

It is less clear how the “lockers” and “no phone” approaches are enforced in practice, but they rely more heavily on an individual student’s adherence to policy and resisting the temptation to use a phone throughout the day.

Is one approach better than others?

With so many policies, it’s natural to ask which one is best. No doubt, education leaders across the state will be debating that question with a renewed focus on policies. Here’s some guidelines to help guide those debates:

• Set and communicate clear policies: This will make it easier on school staff responsible for making sure students do not access their phones during the school day. Implementation will be critical. No policy can be effective if it is enforced inconsistently or not at all. Ideally, students should get the same message from the district, principal, teachers and their parents or caregivers.

• Consider difficult trade-offs: “Classroom collection” and “no show” policies allow for parents and students to stay in touch as needed and call less attention to students who use their personal devices for medical or other permitted reasons. On the other hand, these approaches will require teachers to monitor students and enforce the rules throughout the school day, which may be less effective in preventing student phone use than the “centralized collection” approach or rules that completely prohibit phones on school premises.

• Watch out for unintended consequences: Some policies are cheap to implement. Others require the purchasing of expensive equipment or a good deal of staff time. Think about what protocols need to be in place to keep up and enforce those rules. That will enhance resource efficiency and protect teachers who report challenges with monitoring phone use and even violence when they try to enforce the rules.

Justin Heinze receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control, including for the data collected for this article (R01CE003837).

Brian Jacob receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control, the Arnold Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation. He is currently conducting an evaluation of Yondr lockable pouches and, as part of this project, has interacted with Yondr staff to obtain data and gain greater understanding of how Yondr is implemented in schools.

Elyse Thulin receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is affiliated with Sandy Hook Promise Foundation's National Research Advisory Council.