{"id":274823,"date":"2026-01-08T22:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T22:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/274823\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T22:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T22:02:07","slug":"new-jersey-bans-student-cellphone-use-during-the-school-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/274823\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey bans student cellphone use during the school day"},"content":{"rendered":"

RAMSEY, N.J. (AP) \u2014 New Jersey on Thursday joined a growing list of states<\/a> to limit students\u2019 cellphone use during the school day. <\/p>\n

In the remaining days of his second term, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy<\/a> signed legislation requiring the state education commission and local school boards to come up with guidelines for the use of cellphones in schools for grades K-12. The new law specifically requires the prohibition of non-academic uses of internet-connected devices \u2014 including phones \u2014 during the school day. <\/p>\n

Murphy, who will be succeeded by Democrat Mikie Sherrill<\/a> this month, called for the ban early last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to rid our classrooms of needless distractions, \u201d Murphy said, \u201cand encourage our children to be more attentive, engaged during the school day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prohibition is set to go into effect with the 2026-2027 school year. <\/p>\n

Including New Jersey, 37 states and the District of Columbia now have laws or rules limiting phones and other electronic devices in school, although some won\u2019t take effect until later.<\/p>\n

Phones are banned throughout the school day in 19 of the states and the District of Columbia, although Georgia and Florida impose such \u201cbell-to-bell\u201d bans only from kindergarten through eighth grade.<\/p>\n

There are seven states with some kind of guidance recommending local policy that is not a law, including Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, South Dakota, Washington, and six states with no statewide law or guidance \u2014 Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, and Wyoming.<\/p>\n

More states may take action this year. In Massachusetts lawmakers have partially passed a school-day ban, and legislators are newly proposing a school day ban in Kansas, which now only recommends that districts develop policies. In Georgia, where lawmakers passed a school-day ban last year for grades K-8, the state House speaker is now pushing to expand the ban to high schools.<\/p>\n

Massimo Randazzo, a student at Ramsey High School where Murphy signed the bill, said the school had begun requiring students to store cellphones in pouches a year ago. Initially frustrated, students then noticed a positive change, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of everyone rushing between classes, staring at screens, students actually started talking to one another. The space felt more social and more present,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RAMSEY, N.J. (AP) \u2014 New Jersey on Thursday joined a growing list of states to limit students\u2019 cellphone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[12432,2597,18,3334,19,285,17,4167,3521,105038,68825,279,10269,139355,4172,82,12438,4077],"class_list":{"0":"post-274823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-district-of-columbia","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-internet","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-legislation","16":"tag-lifestyle","17":"tag-local-news-for-apple","18":"tag-mikie-sherrill","19":"tag-mobile","20":"tag-new-jersey","21":"tag-phil-murphy","22":"tag-schools","23":"tag-technology","24":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","25":"tag-u-s-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115861739421341092","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}