Illinois lawmakers just passed a bill banning students from using cellphones in class. It's now one of more than 35 states to restrict cellphones and other devices in schools.
In his budget address earlier this year, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said everywhere he goes, parents tell him one of their deepest concerns is the impact of social media on their kids.
"There's real harm being done, and it's interfering with our ability to give children the most productive educational environment possible," said the governor. "It's time to get cellphones out of the classroom."
This spring, the state's school cell phone bill passed easily with bipartisan support.
Illinois' school cellphone bill goes into effect in the 2027-28 school year.
How will Illinois' school cellphone ban work?
Jessica Handy is the executive director of the education advocacy group Stand for Children-Illinois. It just released a guide for schools now creating a cellphone plan.
"We think," she said, "this is one of the most impactful policies that we can pass right now."
Handy says "bell-to-bell" bans are the gold standard. It means no phones from the first bell of the school day to the last.
Illinois' new legislation is not bell-to-bell. It bans phones — as well as other devices like earbuds and smartwatches — during instructional time. Handy says individual school districts can choose whether to allow students to use their phones during passing periods and lunch or adopt a full bell-to-bell ban.
As of last year, 25 states had bell-to-bell bans.
In Illinois, the plan includes specific exceptions for students with medical needs, disability accommodations and, in some cases, English-language learners.
The legislation also forbids school districts from giving students out-of-school suspensions or expulsions if their sole infraction is getting caught using a device. If the student is using it to engage in other kinds of misconduct, that level of discipline can be applied.
Stand for Children's guide outlines the options schools have. They can have students lock their phones in magnetically sealed pouches, store them in centralized cellphone lockers or leave them in their regular lockers.
"We see," said Handy, "that the places that it's working the best are places that have secure, centralized storage of phones."
That's easier for smaller schools where students come through the same set of doors. Many schools purchase the magnetic Yondr pouches, but they can be pricey, often about $25 per pouch. Plus, around 25% have to be replaced every year because they're lost or damaged. But Handy says the concept of the pouch is more important than the brand.
"An envelope would work too," she said. "There are other ways you could store a phone in a pouch without making that investment if it seems too costly right now."
Do school cellphone bans actually work?
On average, teenagers spend about an hour of the school day on their smartphones, mostly scrolling social media. If the goal is for students to spend less time on their phones, studies show they do. Phone usage can drop significantly.
Handy says the benefit of that is pretty straightforward.
"This has the potential," she said, "to really increase learning time for free, essentially."
But do bans lead to better academic outcomes? Nationally, research shows minimal test score difference, although it’s only been studied a few years.
A small district in northern Illinois banned phones two year ago. How's it going?
Hinckley-Big Rock is a small district in DeKalb County. It was one of many Illinois districts to roll out cellphone bans over the past few years. The district just finished its second year with a bell-to-bell ban.
"If you get caught with it," said Superintendent Jessica Sonntag, "it goes to the office, you pick it up at the end of the day. If you get a second shot, the parents have to pick it up. If it's a third offense, then it's a student-specific consequence we work out with parents on what's going to change that behavior."
In two years, she says they've only had two students get to that third level.
Sonntag says the policy has been a success.
"We've seen so many less disciplinary issues, more positive social interactions," she said. "Kids are more outgoing, the hallways are louder, they're full of energy, the lunchroom is active."
The district extended its lunch period to allow students to play basketball in the gym or walk outside. Board games like Battleship have had a renaissance. Even Tech Decks, the finger skateboards that were a staple of the early 2000s, have made a comeback.
But Sonntag knows just because they've seen a drop in office referrals and failed grades, correlation does not necessarily equal causation.
"Is there really any correlation between cellphones out of school and academic performance?" said Sonntag. "Maybe I can't point to that specifically, but what I will say is: When kids are less distracted, they have an opportunity to take in information. They're more ready to learn."
She says they're also seeing fewer mental health challenges. Nationally, initial research shows that after cellphone bans, student well-being dips but then rebounds the following year. The same is true for school discipline.
Sonntag heard stories from other schools about how difficult the transition could be but says it went smoothly at Hinckley-Big Rock.
"It shifted so quickly," she said. "The kids adapted so quickly. The environment started to change and be more positive so quickly."
She says the district is fortunate to be small enough that implementation and communication with parents were easier.
Like many districts, Hinckley-Big Rock used a grant to purchase magnetically sealed Yondr bags for middle and high school students to lock their phones in. She says it cost them around $12,000.
Sonntag says some parents now use them at home too.
"We put some locks throughout our community, like the Yondr bag unlock mechanisms," she said, "and told parents, like, you can use them however you want."
The superintendent said teachers are fully behind the move, but it's forced them to make some unexpected changes in the classroom too.
"Our teachers have said they had to relearn to teach bell-to-bell," she said. "That's pretty vulnerable for them to say, because in the past if they finished their lesson, they would say 'We've got a few minutes left, you guys can take out your phones,' and they couldn't say that."
At this point, she says they have no regrets about the policy. In fact, cutting back on technology has gone so well that they're not stopping with phones.
The pandemic supercharged the number of school districts going "1:1," meaning they give each student a tablet or laptop — usually a Chromebook — to use during class and often take home.
Sonntag says Hinckley-Big Rock is considering turning back the clock. The district may stop issuing Chromebooks to students and instead return to how many schools operated more than 10 years ago: using carts of laptops that teachers can wheel into classrooms when needed.
Year one of a ban at one of the state's largest districts
U-46 in Elgin is the state's second-largest school district. They just finished their first year with bell-to-bell bans at all seven of their middle schools.
Heather Hodal is the assistant principal at Abbott Middle School. One of the first differences she noticed was a louder hallway and lunchroom.
"Students bringing decks of Uno cards," said Hodal, "because now they have to interact with each other at lunch and play games with each other, [bringing] stickers."
But she says the impact has been much deeper than a few extra card games.
"Teachers were saying all year long, this year just feels different," she said. "It just feels better."
She says students were more engaged in class, paying closer attention and having more discussions.
You might imagine that more engaged students paying closer attention would perform better in class too. It's still early, but district officials say every school saw growth in math and English language arts during the first year.
"The most drastic [change] this year," she said, "was in behavior, which I would hope long term would lead to those even greater academic changes."
There were fewer fights and a significant drop in cellphone-related infractions.
To implement the bell-to-bell ban, U-46 also bought Yondr pouches. Students could choose to lock their phones in the pouch or leave them in their lockers.
Even limiting the policy to middle schools, U-46 is much larger than Hinckley-Big Rock. Hodal says district leaders had to make sure communication was consistent across schools.
Cellphone bans make some parents anxious. How will they get in touch with their children during an emergency? It's an understandable concern in the age of mass shootings. Hodal says that made it even more important to explain why the district adopted the policy.
"We hosted basically like an open house Q&A type of night with parents," she said, "going over the whole policy. They could bring their students to that. I think that intentionality made for a better process."
As the school year got underway, it helped that whenever a student asked to use a phone — either a personal cellphone or a school phone — they were allowed to do so. By the end of the year, Hodal says many students had memorized important phone numbers for the first time.
Her advice for schools now developing their own policies: Stay consistent — in how you explain the policy to students and parents, as well as in the expectations and consequences.
Copy Edited by Eryn Lent
