Beyond the
cellphone-ban count.

What this comparison measures

Each jurisdiction receives a separate elementary, middle and high-school classification. The unit of analysis is the statewide policy described by the linked source. A district’s stronger local rule does not automatically change that statewide classification. The comparison also separates implementation timing, exceptions, school-issued technology and open research questions.

The resulting categories describe different policy designs. Full-school-day restrictions cover the interval beyond classroom lessons. Instructional limits focus on teaching periods and may leave the design of the restriction to local boards. A local-policy requirement mandates a decision-making process without prescribing one uniform restriction. Guidance and research measures encourage practice or require state support without themselves imposing a student-use prohibition.

On this coding, 24 jurisdiction findings fall in the full-school-day category for elementary schools, compared with 21 for high schools. Those figures include both text-reviewed and official-summary findings. They are counts within this dated dataset, not independently verified national prevalence estimates. Eight jurisdictions remain unresolved, and Maryland is coded separately as a future requirement. The comparison exposes every underlying classification.

Grade bands change the national picture

Florida’s statute distinguishes elementary and middle school-day restrictions from high-school instructional-time restrictions. Hawaii’s Board policy announcement describes a similar grade distinction. An undifferentiated “state has a ban” label would erase the different school day experienced by older students.

Georgia’s 2026 enrolled measure adds another complication: the high-school expansion has a later implementation deadline than the K–8 requirement. The comparison therefore keeps the present scope and future transition in separate fields. “Not covered by cited rule” for a grade means exactly that; it is not a finding that students have unrestricted access under every local policy.

A local-policy mandate is a different intervention

New Mexico’s final SB11 requires a policy but makes an instructional-time prohibition one option the policy may include. Reading that option as mandatory would overstate the statewide restriction. This release corrects the tracker’s earlier summary accordingly.

California requires local policies that limit or prohibit smartphone use. Arizona requires policies limiting use while specifying permitted circumstances. Minnesota’s short statutory section requires adoption of a cellphone policy without prescribing a uniform prohibition. These approaches belong in the comparison, but counting them as identical to full-day restrictions would hide the local decisions that determine practice.

For district leaders, the practical question is consequently two-part: what must the state-level policy contain, and what did the local board actually adopt? The state brief provides the first layer of evidence and a checklist for obtaining the second.

Timing words and exceptions need close reading

“Instructional day” does not always mean “instructional time.” Ohio’s education agency explains that the instructional day includes transitions, recess, meals and field trips. Oregon’s executive order spans the interval from the start to the end of regular instructional hours. The tracker previously made some of these distinctions too loosely; the release replaces them with explicit source-based explanations.

Full-day classifications still need qualification. New Jersey’s enacted text targets nonacademic use of internet-enabled devices and permits reasonable academic exceptions. Utah’s enrolled measure includes local exceptions and a process for brief parent communication. DC’s law addresses possession on the person, with a specific distinction for backpacks or purses. None of these details is adequately represented by a single “strictness” score.

Enactment is not implementation

Maryland’s Chapter596 separates its legal effective date from its 2027–28 school implementation requirement. Mixing those dates would count a future operational change as if students already experienced it. The briefs retain this distinction rather than sorting solely on whether a governor has signed a measure.

There is a second gap between an implementation deadline and evidence of compliance. This release does not establish that every district has adopted a compliant policy, that staff consistently enforce it, or that a particular storage method works. It also does not estimate effects on attendance, attainment, wellbeing or classroom climate. Those claims require district implementation evidence and an evaluation design that addresses other changes occurring at the same time.

What remains open

Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and South Dakota retain unresolved findings. The barriers differ: inaccessible operative text, a newly identified successor law, incomplete final bill status, or an indexed summary that does not settle transitional provisions. Each brief records the specific next question. An unresolved classification is a research task, not a judgment that the jurisdiction lacks a policy.

Fifteen additional findings rely on official summaries. Those sources are useful evidence, but summaries may omit definitions, grandfathering or exceptions. Promoting them to operative-text review requires reading the relevant enacted or adopted instrument, checking its status and updating the locator—not merely changing a badge.

A reproducible starting point

The release archive preserves both the preceding dataset and this release. The 51-row CSV exposes the grade classifications, source URLs, timing and open questions. The eight unresolved findings remain in the denominator rather than disappearing from national summaries.

Future releases should preserve this structure, document substantive changes and distinguish a source correction from a real change in policy. The next research priorities are the unresolved operative texts, an independent review of classifications, and a clearly sampled district implementation study. These steps would strengthen the evidence without implying that a visually complete map is a complete audit.